Trust in Him

Monday…November 24th, 2014

Well hi there fam! 

Life is the weirdest thing lately but before I get too sad I want to tell you about the AMAZING thing that our journey called life is. You know it is so crazy thinking back at our life and remembering how SCARED we have felt at many transitions in life and then knowing that once that mountain is climbed and we look back at how FAR we have come, it brings strength and happiness. I wish that we could see it in the moment! But I guess that that is the cool part about life. God loves us so much that He allows hardships to make us better. To make the people that He intends us to be. I have been feeling pretty tender feelings lately. I have been trying to think of how to possibly describe how I feel and I think that I would say that I feel NUMB.. full and empty at the same time. I actually kind of feel like I am leaving the MTC again but on a whole different scale.. I have thought about all of the incredible people that I have met and been able to love and reflect about my now unfailing testimony.. and I feel empty thinking about how I have no idea what is ahead of me and how this year and a half has just gone so fast. I am excited to come home and know that there is so much ahead.. but at the same time I feel like I am dying. I know that I am and that I will always be where I am needed when I have the spirit by my side. I think that is true with just about ANYTHING in life or any transition.. an empty and full feeling. That is where faith comes in! We have to constantly strive to love and make the most of our lives, where we currently stand, giving miles and miles of gratitude along the way. This life is SHORT. it really is. and it is amazing!

Things will work out for those who love and trust God.

I feel this poem here wraps up my thoughts and feelings

“I was reflecting yesterday if I would call the mission a sacrifice. And for everything it seems I might have sacrificed, I feel like I have been given tenfold. If I say I have sacrificed time with my family, then I must realize that I have been rewarded with a family more united and loving than ever. If the mission has been a sacrifice of time, I have been rewarded with knowledge that no university in the world could have taught me. If it has been a sacrifice of my talents, I have been rewarded with more than I ever had before. I can speak Spanish, I care more genuinely about people, [and] I am less quick to judge and more anxious to serve. If it has been a sacrifice of human relationships, I have been rewarded with practice in speaking to men and women from all walks of life and in diverse situations. If I have sacrificed my earthly possessions, I have been given new ones that I value infinitely more. For anything I have sacrificed I have been given more.”

OKAY enough for random thoughts.. This week has been great! The only down side is that I am SICK, ahhh it's horrible. Pray for me please! But this week has been full of miracles. Turns out that I am having my last miracle baptism this coming Saturday! That was a miracle and I am happy to be able ot participate in a last baptism. Her name is S.  She is from Galicia and she is 27 years old and is the a beautiful girl. I have learned so much from her. She is so receptive to the spirit because of her tendendy to be really silent and to really think and meditate. We have been working with her for a while now and I am so happy for her to take this huge leap of faith. Everything, including basic knowledge of Jesus Christ, is new to her. S. feels the spirit and acts on it so fast but I really and truly feel for her so much! We were up laying in bed last night just talking about how much we love her and feel this strong connection to her. I love her! She is such a brave person and I love her. We pulled out her baptism white dress the other day to show her and she just started to cry. There is something that is so pure about her.  You just feel it when you are around her. I think it might just have to do with how she hasn´t had a lot of real direction in her life. She will be baptized this Saturday and respond to her leap of faith. She works in a hair salon and we always teach her there. :)

We got a lesson with J. this week and it made me so happy! Little by little with her. She still has got that fire of faith strong inside of her. I will never forget that. We have just been loving her and serving so much everyday every chance that we get. I think that is ultimately our message we have for the world. That of love and service!

Thanksgiving is this week! How crazy how time does fly! I will never forget that our gratitude has a lot to do with the faith that we have. I don´t know if I have told you about this activity that we do every Sunday night.. but when I got here we came up with the great idea to do a pancake night every Sunday night! And we have been holding that tradition strongly since week one. It is just a little thing we do so that members and investigators and everyone can come! We did it last night and had a great turn out. We make seriously over 50 pancakes every sunday night. It was fun! We decided to share the message of gratitude and celebrate it there with those who came. We went around and said one thing that we are greatful for. I just sat there and it was so nice to just be able to soak up the spirit that comes so fast from sharing our blessings.

Be bold about expressing your gratitude! Do it every minute. You can never say to much! It brings the spirit and you will be happy. You will see the very many blessing you have the many more that are out there for us to have.

I love you all a ton and I pray for you constantly! Especially you KATIE I pray for you alllll of the time that you will learn the language and just be HAPPY and help others to be happy like you despite how hard it gets.. that you may grow to love the mission and lose yourself and find yourself.

Make this week count!

Hermana Nydegger

If the Savior stood beside me, would I be?

Monday…November 17th, 2014

I CAN¨T BELIEVE THAT KATIE LEAVES IN A WEEK! I saw some pictures from the Arnetts.. they have a niece in Katie's mission, and it looks BEAUTIFUL! how exciting! Ahhh I remember those feelings like they were yesterday!

This week has been SO fast and it makes me so nervous. Seriously these are your feelings at the end of your mission.. UP down UP down UP down. I just have the biggest butterflies in my stomach constantly.

Zone conference was AMAZING. And it was the WEIRDEST thing because I am the only one in our whole zone going home. I am a loner and it doesn´t help being one of the only Hermana's in Galicia! It was fun and was the last big trip as a missionary. Nothing better than being SURROUNDED by missionaries.. people who have been called and authorized by God to be in this very little part of the world! You can literally feel the authority in every single one of them. And you can see the worthy power that they exercise! I just LOVE it. I have always loved going to conference because it is the clearest example of noticing authority! I love so much when the prophet walks in, everyone stands up, and there is just total silence and you just feel the the power of his divine calling and AUTHORITY ring through your body? How powerful would we be as missionaries if we knew how to truly exercise this divine power! We all have been set apart. But it is up to us and our personal worthiness to be able to let others see and FEEL of this power! I think it is something that we as missionaries forget a lot of times. I mean we have been called and given this authority! In the scriptures it talks all of the time about how we are few. Being a fellow missionary among over 80,000 now, and thinking about how many people there are in the world, it is TRUE. I am part of the very few! It is humbling and it is a privilege. We are few in number. But God never calls the most or the best of the best! He actually calls in in our weakness and makes us who he needs us to be! We are few, but we are lucky. Something that I have been learning my whole mission is how to actually exercise the power that I have that comes from my calling of being a representative of Christ. How to TRULY exert this power so that people can feel it clearly and know who I work for and who I testify of.

This past week I have learned COUNTLESS things as always! But here are some of the few that I would like to share with you all.

First, when investigators are baptized, they are still BLINDFOLDED. So on Tuesday night our zone leaders gave an awesome fireside walking an investigator literally through the steps of the gospel of Christ! I was picked to be the blindfolded investigator and I learned something that I have never known my entire mission. Something that changes everything about the work. So they blindfolded me and put on a backpack fulllll of hymn books and put me in the back. The back pack represented my sins and life. They missionaries began to teach me and guided me every single step. The steps through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Interestingly enough though, I was blindfolded the entire time! Although I felt to spirit, and as the weight on my shoulders was ultimately lifted, it was the most confusing thing ever. It was so scary also! I couldn't see anything. I could hardly hear what they were telling me. And I constantly ran into things. The thing that hit me the hardest was the ENDURING part. After you are baptized and have the holy ghost.. you still have a hard time seeing where exactly you are going! Actually, you can´t see still! You feel good but it is still terrifying! So we all know that the enduring to the end is the hardest part but it wasn´t until that very night that I truly FELT it. The path of the gospel is a strait and narrow. My missionaries guided me through every step I seemed to take, no matter how little, I ran into a chair until at the very end when I finally made it to the celestial kingdom and the blindfold I was able to pull off and see alllll I had done and where I came from. You guys it was the weirdest and coolest and most eye opening experience ever! I think for the very first time I was actually able to put myself into the actual place of converts and investigators and feel how SCARY but good that it is. The whole time I couldn´t help but think about J. and how she is STILL blindfolded. We are all in a sense! She has changed her life and feels better but still has no idea really where she is going although there are people telling her along the way. It truly and completely required faith. It is something that you just have to DO! She is out there and her testimony is growing and it is strong.. but she is in the dark! For the first time I felt how truly dark and confusing it is. I learned the importance of helping them in the details of every step along the way. The wholeee way. Especially the endurance part. It is a scary world that we are in. It is dark and scary world that J. is in and she, as well as all of us, needs help and needs to use agency to ultimately use faith and make it there! 

Second

CHRIST is who I strive to represent and is who allows me to do all I do. The whole theme of the conference was If the Savior Stood Beside Me. The Savior does not ever abandon His missionaries. He is actually right THERE. Right next to us during the hard just as much as during the good. Every single door that is slammed into our face, every single person that rejects us, every trial, ever tear, every heart ache.. he is THERE for all of it. I felt it more than I have this week than my entire mission. Maybe it is because I am truly looking now for his presence during this marvelous and hard work. I have felt not just his spirit but his presence in some of the hardest moments. I KNOW that this is his work. I know that there is nothing better and nothing more important. I am just a 20 year old girl but I will never deny or be able to deny what I have felt of Christ out here on this beautiful mission in Spain. I know He lives. I know that He works with His missionaries. I have felt it and I cannot deny it! I love my mission. No matter how hard it gets you know that you are literally standing shoulder to shoulder with the best life that there is. The Savior does stand beside me everyday.  I had an interesting experience the other day. I have been praying constantly for J. and I still do and I am grateful for all of your humble prayers. I called her the other day to see if we could stop by and to my biggest shock she said that she doesn´t want us to visit her any more. I just HURT for her knowing that she is in the dark and we need to do all we can to help her even though it is ultimately her agency to use her leaps of faith. The other day we saw J. in the street just sitting there and I almost lost it. I just felt this sadness that I have not felt before. For a second I wanted to turn around and walk the other way, but I said a little prayer, and felt that we should walk by and say Hi. I felt that the Lord would do it, so I did it. We walked by and seeing her look up and seeing the pain in her soul was so hard! We waved to her and all though she didn´t really want to talk she gave us her little toothless smile and cute wave. Even though I couldn´t do anything else, I literally FELT Christ wave with me and walk with me past her. I felt his love and it was the most beautiful feeling ever knowing that I have done my part and that He walked WITH me.

I know that Christ walked WITH us. I have never felt closer to Him my entire life than I have on my mission and I strive to represent Him in every way possible to be the vessel He intends for me to be.

Hermana Nydegger

Raining cats and dogs!

Monday…November 10th, 2014

Mi querida familia,

So here I am sitting at a locutorio about to head up to A Coruña for my last zone conference ever. I don´t really know what to say! I am feeling WEIRD! Really really reallllly mixed feelings. It is such a special and tender experience. But I am excited. They are such JOYS, zone conferences and other meetings. And they are so needed and really boost you up. I will let you know how it goes!

On Wednesday we had our monthly zone meeting in Santiago and that was fun too. Funny thing.. the zone leaders had picked on us to do this demonstration of how to plan to get investigators to church and so we were all sitting in a circle and had to put ourselves in the middle of the circle and just plan like normally as if we were in our apartment but in front of everybody.. can you say a little 'awkward'? Ha but it was fun and a good practice. It is all just too weird this whole thing coming to an end! I catch my self just speechless anytime anyone here asks me how I am doing! I literally can´t respond or find words to even describe how I truly am feeling!

It has been RAINING CATS AND DOGS. Holy cow I don´t think I even knew what rain was until I came up here to Galicia! Now I know it better than Utah snow :) MOM thank you SO much for the rain boots! Seriously if you don´t have rain boots here you are the biggest fool! They are great and perfect. And they are comfortable and go with everything! They came the day before and I picked them up literally an hour before the down pour. Perfect timing thanks to the Lord! And they were easy to pick up. I love my cute mom!

So we seriously had THE most fun week with J. but for some reason she has been acting weird lately. It really worried me because she wasn´t reading her scriptures and was just not her new self. Anyways we were just so caught off guard when she didn´t show up to church on Sunday and then called after to apologize and say that she won´t be coming anymore..

I answered that call and about dropped the phone I was so speechless.. I just PRAYED so hard to try and understand and know what to do! We were running to our eating appointment so I asked her if it was okay to talk in person right after and to stop by.

So we went by and my heart just BROKE as she began to tell how she misses her old life and her 'freedom' to do whatever she wants. Julia is an interesting case because she didn´t have much structure to her life. I had the impression to ask her if she had smoked and she said 'yes' :( She is a wide open book and you can tell so easily when something is wrong! Anyways we just sat there for the longest time talking to her trying to figure out with her what had happened. It just killed me so bad. It was like she had completely forgotten about the many blessings she has seen in her life due to the gospel. We talked about the covenant she made with God and how she will find MORE freedom in the church than any other place. She listened really hard but still kept firm to what she told us and wants to take a break and see if there really is a difference in her life when she lives the gospel. It was so hard. I just felt crushed! I just don´t get it at all why people have a hard time understanding that this is truly the ONLY way to happiness! It was hard because Julia has come SO far and she is everything to me. I just pray constantly that she will see the difference and be able to come back. It was the strangest thing ever.

It made me think for a second about how God must feel when we go off and just don´t understand what He gives and offers to us over and over again! How sad He must feel and how it can be so hard for us to understand! Why is it so hard to just not see the whole picture? We need to stay close to God in all of our decisions. I have so much faith that Julia will come back! It just worries me. We think that something else must have happened..it is a huge mystery and happened all so fast.

PRAY FOR HER. Pray for her! She at least agreed to praying and talking it over with God before she makes any major decisions. 

I love you all. I love the mission more than anything and I am so happy! I am enjoying every moment and I feel so grateful at this time for this biggest miracle in my life.. being able to give all I have to the Lord during this year and a half and have him make out of me what he knows to be the best. There is nothing better than the mission! No matter how hard it gets. It is so worth it 

OS QUIERO!

Hermana Nydegger

IT'S Life!

Monday…November 3rd, 2014

Hi family!

THANKS FOR THE PACKAGE. I loved it! You are all just the greatest!

How was Halloween?? It is so weird in Spain! just a whole different level of Halloween. We actually didn´t do anything and like forgot until later in the day! Ha

J. is doing AMAZING and seriously just glows more and more and more and MORE everyday! It has been the coolest thing to watch. We visit her like everyday almost right after medio dia at 4 30. She has been so funny because out of no where she just has this strongest desire to learn English! She doesn´t have any teeth except for one in the back, and she is 53 with pretty much an entire life of smoking, so I am not sure how much English she really retains haha. She does remember random words though and it is the cutest thing because her pronunciation is just so cute. Something that she ALWAYS says, "ITS life." So we taught that to her in English and now she always says,

"ITS life...." as she tilts her head with the cutest toothless smile you have every seen in your life.  She has the sweetest spirit!

Hahaha now when anything falls through or doesn´t go the way it was planned to be, Hermana Bennett and I just say ITS life in her heart melting accent. I love that woman so much!. 

This week has been great! Its been full of a TON of walking. Everyday is seriously a hike! But it is going great. I love my new comp! I am sad that I will only have 1 transfer with her! She reminds me so so much of Hermana Christian. She is from Utah and DAD her dad served a mission in south africa and maybe you know him?? I think it must have been around the same time!  You will have to let me know! It is so fun because we seriously talk about Tenerife and the people there alllll of the time. It gives me the craziest flashbacks to being on that island. We definitely get Los Cristianos trunky.. but hey, its better than home trunky!

We started teaching this girl from Nigeria and we seriously had the weirdest time trying to teach her the restoration because she was FORCE feeding her 4 month baby the whole time. Haha typical Africans. It was so sad! She would pinch his sweet little cheeks so that he would cry and then try to get milk down his little throat! It was a little disturbing and didn´t help with having an atmosphere in which she could feel the spirit.

I called I. this cute 24 year old Bolivian that we were teaching a while back with Hermana Braithwaite when she out of know where fell off of the face of the earth. So I called her the other day and she finally answered and told me that she has been in the hospital for the last few weeks.. So I was like, oh my, what happened!! and she was like... 

"Me asustó un serpiente y me puse muy mal..." or a SNAKE scared me and I got really sick and worse and worse each day!"

HAHA! I died laughing it was so hard to not burst out laughing. I've never had an excuse like that in my whole mission.  Gotta love it when an investigator tells you that they can´t meet with you because a snake scared them. 

Sorry such random things! It was a good week. We FINALLY get to meet with G. again tomorrow for the second time. She was one of those miracles that I was telling you about ages ago! PRAY for her. She is so golden.

I love you all so much! I love the mission. I try not to think about it coming to an end.  It does not feel real at all! But then I just pray everyday and thank my Heavenly Father for this amazing JOURNEY of joy that I have experienced these past 17 months.  It has been incredible!

Hermana Nydegger

ps…Random pics! I brought my wrong cam card so enjoy some old pics from the glorious torry john :) MISS THESE PEEPS. This was my last night there!

LAST TRANSFER…This is not a dream!

Monday…October 27th, 2014

Dearest family,

As I come to the end of my mission life really seems like a blur! 

SO MUCH FOR A NATIVE COMPANION..I got my last transfer call and was sad at the fact that I will never be getting a native companion! But I am SO happy to stay in Vigo and to be able to end this mission in one of my favorite places in the world. It still just doesn't click ANYTHING at all about going home. I feel like I will be going home but then that I will be just flying RIGHT back out. I feel like I will in deed be a missionary for the rest of my life! I feel at peace but I also feel just so deeply sad at moments. I am going to miss the mission so much, family!! Well my new companion will be Hermana Bennett…Hermana Christian trained her like right after I left Tenerife so I am excited to just be able to talk for days about Los Cristianos! Speaking of which, I found that M. (this colombian boy Hermana Phillips and I worked with.. remember?) got baptized! what a great feeling that I have for him and his family. It may have been a year later, but I just glad he finally got baptized. We worked so much with him and his mom who was less active. Anyways Hermana Bennett should be great! R. is going to freak out probably when I tell her! I am excited! 

This past transfer has been great and has just FLOWN by. Holy cow it just scares me how fast these next ones will fly! My whole mission every transfer pretty much has been faster than the previous.. and if that continues.. I will be home in literally 2 seconds. I am going to miss Hermana Braithwaite so much! I learned so much from her. She is truly an incredible missionary. I still can't even believe that she is going home! She and Hermana money! It is so weird because I feel like I am pretty much part of their group! I guess it means I am going home soon.

Saturday night after saying goodbye to her it just made me reflect sooo much on this LAST transfer and it really made me think that I want to do ALL that I can and just leave every last drop of me in the mission field and magnify my calling even to the very grain. I want and I need to get all that I can out of this incredible and MIRACLE mission.

This past week I got a letter from a friend that was a direct answer. And I have been pondering so much about it this whole week. It has been hitting me hard all week.

3 Ne 8:1-"He truly did many miracles in the name of Jesus; and there was not any man who could do a miracle in the name of Jesus save he were cleansed every WHIT from his iniquity."

WOW! I cannot to any miracle unless I be completely cleaned of every sin even to the little particle. That hit me HARD. It hit me hard because it allowed me to feel and it allowed me to recognized the 100 ways my past life, and current life in the mission that I need to improve. It hit me like TO my very heart. I hit me because I know and I have known that I need to be repenting more earnestly and sincerely and diligently and harder of my sins. I have been working so hard and giving my all and NOW I am working so much harder to be 100% completely through and through clean! I am pouring my heart more and more to the Lord! I want to FEEL CLEAN. Clean and pure like J. right after being baptized. I have recognized my so many mistakes that I have made and I am praying to know if there is any thing more that I need to repent of. Every day we sin without knowing and a lot of the time when we do know. I just want to completely purge myself of any particles of sin from before and during the mission. I want to be as pure and clean that I can be. To be able to answer all of the questions in Alma 5 and to be able to say that I did my best! I am not perfect. Complete perfection is not achieved in this life. But Complete PROGRESSION is. We can be clean, completely clean. We can literally hear and literally feel the Lord telling us, GO thy way and sin no more. and I the Lord will remember then no more. I know there is so much I lack and sometimes I feel that it is all I see, but I am here to humble myself to the Lord and be that worthy vessel in which He can work His miracles.

I Love the Lord. I love the mission. I love repentance and how we truly can feel 100% CLEAN. I am working towards it and I know that It is what I need to do! I am truly FEELING more God directed in my life. And it is overwhelming! How beautiful is it that we can be cleaned from every little whit of sin. Anyone can feel it thanks to the atonement. It is a lesson that I have been learned and it is taking me along time to learn! The cool thing thought is that our Heavenly Father is so patient with us and he knows our hearts and he knows we try.

I think about Alma's cry when he said, "And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, ands, NOT procrastinate the day of your repentance." It just hit me so hard this week thinking about repentance! As missionaries we have the authority to call people who are under our stewardship to repentance (I love it haha) but how often to I call MYSELF to MY repentance? The scriptures countless times has profets that PLEAD to us from the innermost part of their hearts that we repent. Every one of us sins in one way or another and repentance is crucial part of life! Not only that is is the BEST thing we have thanks to a loving Saviour who loves us so much. How often to we call ourselves to repentance?? for it is the true only way and it's the HAPPY way!

Well, I hope you didn't fall asleep in my preaching! It is just something that means a lot to me and is deep in my heart. Please forgive me for anything thing I have done that has every been against the will of the Lord. I love you all so much. It would mean and help me a lot if you could pray for me and help me know in what areas I need to improve in these last 6 weeks! What I need to change and was I need to do. 

We as people are always changing! May we take time to think prayerfully and consider the ways we need to change and the sins, even the smallest, that we need to fix with our Lord.

Random side not.. FUNNIEST sunday ever yesterday with J. She shows up in the cute dress Hermana Braithwaite gave her and with just a TON of makeup on. Haha it was so cute! Everyone was so happy to see her. The best part about this whole thing though was the fact that she physically could NOT stay awake during the sacrament meeting including the hymns! We giggled the whole time and was probably the most irreverent sacrament meeting of my life hahaha. We did everything to keep her awake and she just couldn't no matter what we did. At one point we gave her mints and paper to draw on which just resulted in DROOL and lots of it.    She was so tired she couldn't even finish her sentences before her head falling down into a deep sleep. She looked over to us and was like, Tengo verguenza! and then CRASH her head fell. Haha!  Poor thing.  We decided to tell her to just go home, there was no way she would make it all 3 hours. We were slightly worried if she would make it home safely as we watched her slowly walk away. Gotta love Julia!

Dad I loved what you said, sometimes we do focus on the ENDURING to the end. We need to endure it to the end and ENJOY the end

Con mucho amor,

ME

WHOOPS! Here are some of the best pictures that I meant to send of J. last week..

Fun activity we did on Wednesday night!

Dropping off Hermana Braithwaite last night…ME in 6 weeks!