Rain Rain NEVER Go Away

Hola!!!

I dont know if I could say this enough. I LOVE rain. So to have it rain ALOT this week definatly made this week celestial in my book. I´ve had multiple bench lessons get interrupted due to rain. However there is one experience I will cheriesh forever! One day we were out walking and our lesson fell through, so we were out contacting. We noticed there were a few dark clouds but we didnt think anything of it. When out of nowhere it starts pouring rain. I mean within seconds it went from sunny to just pouring. My companion and I were soaked. We didnt have a para agua (umbrella), with no lesson, so we stood under a building trying to figure out what we were going to do. We called Andres, a member that we are friends with and ran to his house in the pouring rain to get an umbrella from him. When we walked in we were laughing so hard. It was such a cliche missionary story. When Andres saw us he wouldnt let us leave until the rain stopped. So we sat down sopping wet, and taught his menos activo sister a lesson. That moment definatly goes in my book as amazing. I´ve been warned that situation is very common here in Madrid, that it could just start pouring with no warning. So we´ve learned we have our para agua with us siempre (always). 

So many amazing things happened this week! On Tuesday was my trainer, Hermana Bennett´s birthday, and the people just spoiled her rotten! One investigador, Araisa, from Dominican Republic really went all out. We told her on Monday that it was going to be my companions birthday the following day, and then when we had a lesson with her Thursday we showed up to her piso with it decorated with ballons and cake! Her and her husband starting singing to us and dancing, their ADORABLE four year old ran out and we had a jolly old time! It was so great to see the love they have for us and to be honest we´ve only met with them a few times. But they´ve taken us in like we are their own blood. I didnt expect to love these people as much as I do, and to have them love me and my companion as much as they do. Their outpour of love is such a blessing! I love my job. I find myself saying that alot. I love my job. 

I love my mission. I go to bed exhausted but I wake up excited to start a new day with a new chance to get to know new people and hear their stories. Thats my favorite. Getting to know people, and seeing them change through the influence of the spirit in their lives. Do we know how lucky we are that we are blessed to have the Spirit with us constantly? As members of the church we are promised to have a member of the Godhead with us constantly if we live worthy of that gift. I love this gospel, I love my Savior. He loves us so much. I feel him every day. I miss you all and I cant wait to hug you all and tell you all these amazing/crazy/ funny experiences in person. 

Con Amor,

Hermana Shurtz

Got me some Spain "Horchada"

Hermana Bennett's Birthday Breakfast....No I didn't make it.

Looky what we found!

Legit fishy crackers and real ranch dressing from the "Taste of America" store

Hermana Seegmiller and I

A Love Struck Teenager, and a Family Sent from Heaven

Greetings from Alcobendas!

Honestly, this week was pretty relax I dont have much to say. We´ve been doing the normal day to day routine, wake up, excersize (yes I DO excersize, missions do change you.) Study for hours on end, and then walk the streets until someone will stop and listen to you. "Sleep." And do it all over again. It doesnt sound very exciting, but I promise I love it so much, and I´ve gotten to the point where I couldnt imagine not doing this for the rest of my life. I want to tell you about two of my investigadors: Diane, and Solidad y Fausto.

Diane, is a sweet 14 year old girl that showed up to our clases de ingles that we have every thursday. I found out she was meeting with one of the elders in my ward. However while in English class she started asking me some very odd questions concerning one of the elders. It became very clear that she was infatuated with one of the elders that was teaching her. His companion noticed as well and so they passed her onto us to try to teach her. Our first meeting with her didnt go so well, about every 3 minutes she would ask us if we could call this elder and talk to him. Eventually we just ended the leccion because it was worthless. However she has been coming to church, and seems alittle more focused now (because the elder went home.)

Solidad y Fausto are a married couple from Ecuador. I love them. They have a 10 year old son named Carlos, and he reminds me so much of my cousin Kaden. I have never met a family that are more family oriented. One time we tried to schedule a leccion with them and Solidad the mom, refused to meet unless EVERYONE was there. Carlos kept asking about the "park" to play with his friends, and her response was my favorite! Hablamos luego (we´ll talk later.) Needless to say he was there the next lesson. We watched the Peli (the restoration video with Jose Smith) and it normally works so fine. But for some reason leading up to the first vision it was skipping. My heart broke. I was praying so HARD. I knew that if they saw this film there hearts would be touched. My companion and I prayed our hearts out. And miraculously, the first vision was the only part that didnt have any issues. The Spirit was SO strong. The strongest I´ve felt it on my mission. I know that their hearts were touched. 

Its amazing to see the grand spectrum of how prepared people are to hear the gospel, some need a little more time then others. But when they are ready, and they will be ready. Its the most beautiful moment to witness. I know this church is true. I know that Jose Smith was a prophet of God. I know that this is the only church on the earth with the authority to act in Gods name. What peace it is to know that our baptism are real, that our sealings, are forever. I love my Savior. He has blessed me in more ways then I could ever count. I have felt Him by my side from the moment I walked through security en Saint George Utah. I love Spain. I never planned this for my life, but how grateful I am that I have someone who loves me so much, that lead me here. I miss you all, and love you with all my heart. Stay true to the faith, because when we do we shall have eternal life.

Con Amor,

Hermana Shurtz

Last District meeting before transfers

Transfer day.  Hermana Trone(right)heading to the Islands

Transfers are always hard.  Hermana Kuhn on her way to Madrid City

Dinner at our Bishops place

One Month In the Field, Where Did the Time Go?

Hola!

Well I´ve been in the field one whole month and I can´t believe how fast time is flying by. If all my transfers go as fast as this one did I will be home before I know it (I try not to think about that). Its crazy to me all the lessons     I´ve learned in just the past 30 days. How my soul has been challenged, how my body has been through the ringer, my patience pushed to the edge. What a beautiful test God has allowed me to go through. It´s so much better then the ACT. I wanted to share four things I´ve learned en just this short time. 

1. I Have the Best Boss!

God has allowed me to work in a part of his vinyard. Really I know that He could do this work without me, infact He probably could do it 100x better by himself then with these inexperienced young kids running around the world trying to preach His gospel. But, he doesn't. He allows us to work with Him, because He wants us to enjoy what he enjoys. Saving people. Talking to them, having compassion for others. He wants to share that with us. My trainer told me this once when I got frustrated after we had been fired for the third time in a row "We are out on the streets because God, wants us to be in the streets." How true that is. Everything I am doing (or trying to do) is the way He knows will bring me, and others the most happiness. 

2. The Importance of Keeping Appointments

I have been fired. Alot. People don't show up to appointments. Alot. They turn off their phone, ignore our calls. Never say sorry. And yet, we schedule another with them. Because we know how important this message is and how much it will bless them, even if we know they will fire us, again. We´ve made an appointment with Christ once we were baptized, we would go to church, we would say our prayers, we would read our scriptures. We promise to show up, however sometimes things seem more appealing. So we don´t show up. We turn off our phones. We ignore His texts. But really because He loves us so much he keeps setting new appointments, and sometimes we follow through, others we skip. But everytime He is there waiting, hoping we will show up because He knows how important this message is for all of us.

3. Failure is Not an Option

Planting seeds is necessary. If you don´t plant seeds how do you expect a full on tree to grow? So when people shew me away or give me their favorite finger in passing, I´m not failing. I only fail if I don´t plant the seed. One time I had a question come to my heart "Do you have the faith that if you don't baptize them, someone else will?" Do I have the faith that every minute preaching this gospel is for not? Sometimes its easy to say "oh they´ll never join the church." Why is that? Is this not His true church, that can heal, help, any person with any situation? If we believe that then we can never discard those black sheep. Lehi, even knowing his sons would likely never change, NEVER gave up on Lamen and Lemuel. Because he believed. Failure is not an option. I will be on that street planting seeds, knowing that even if today isn't their time in the future it could be. So be kind, reach out to everyone because we never know when God has softened the hearts of the people or not. 

4. Everyone is a Child of God

One of the blessings in Spain that I never expected to witness was to see so many people from all around the world. A few years back there was a huge surge of immigration to Spain do to its economic rise, and so I have met people from all over the world. My barrio (ward) is so diverse. I have people from England, Germany, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, etc. I´ve eaten food from all over the world. I´ve heard different accents of Spanish. I´ve heard people use different words for the same thing. Yet you know what all these people have in common? Everyone´s eyes light up when they learn about the Savior and His love for us. Everyone smiles when they hear me mispronounce a word in Spanish. Everyone has someone that they love. We are very much all the same. It´s been so beautiful to see that. This mixture of people from everywhere, and yet in reality we are all the same. All children of a loving God. How amazing is that to know?

These are just a few of the amazing things I´ve learned in just this month of being en the field. I can´t believe how blessed I am to witness all these miracles. I know that God lives. I know this is His work. I love my Savior. I love you all, and I pray that you participate in His work however way you can, because I promise the blessings are uncountable. Thank you for your support, I love you all and miss you all SO much. I brag about you all, and love sharing stories from home. I´ll see you soon.

Con Amor,

Hermana Shurtz

Hermana Bennett, her trainer Hermana Christian, and I at Zone Conference

Hermana Bennett and I at the Temple

Our Awesome District at the Madrid Temple for the day.

Almost had an Iranian Roomy

HOLAAAA!!!

I know all of you want to know how running of the bulls went, and since I love building up suspense. I´ll save that for last! However I will tell you about the amazing/weirdest thing that´s happened to me so far on my mission. 

A few weeks ago we contacted a lady on the street from Iran who spoke no spanish or english but she gave us her friends number so that we could get a hold of her. A few weeks later we invited them to english class, they said they would try. Then out of the blue thursday we get a call from the friend of the lady we met saying she wanted to meet with us and hear about our church! Claro que si! We met with them and I believe her name was Farro it was hard to understand her, she told us her story of how she converted to Christianity four years ago and fled Iran to save her life, she had to hide her Bible in her suitcase. Anyway we taught her and she seemed super listo! (ready) Her friend (the lady we contacted) was flying out that night to head back to Iran and it was just super weird and spirtual. Then... things got weirder. The next day she calls us wanting to see if she could live with us because she doesn´t have a place to stay...Uh obviously we said no. But we felt it in our christian duty that we had to help her! So we called all these different people to see what we could do. Finally we got a hold of our Mission President who politely told us to walk away. We respectfully told her we could do nothing to help her and she stormed off mad. We invited her to church but we started putting the pieces together and she just wanted to meet with us to take advantage of the church... Oh well. At least she has a Libro de Mormon and maybe in the future she will read it. 

Plan of Salvation activity at our ward chapel

A HUGE miracle that I witnessed yesterday was our Recent Convert Wellington, gave a talk on Sunday!!! What a beautiful talk it was, it was about the Proclamation to the family, and his conversion process. I felt like such a proud momma listening to him talk. Then after church we witnessed him receive the Aaronic Priesthood. And next week he will recieve a CALLING!! This man is amazing. So prepared. 

Alright one more miracle I witnessed. Yesterday all the missionaries were invited to eat at the Blasko´s house. They live about 40 minutes away from Alcobendas, and it´s exactly what I pictured Spain to be. Just beautiful! We were setting up under their porch for dinner while one of the Elders played the piano, and it started RAINING! I held back tears, (happy ones) how celestial that moment was words couldn´t describe. It was so beautiful. I will always cherish that moment surronded by friends, servents of the Lord, amazing food, and RAIN! 

Good food, friends, and raindrops

Alright time for the bulls... On Wednesday morning we all hurried over in our skirts and tops getting ready to see the famous running of the bulls. We stood out like sore thumbs. What was even more fun was that we were walking all over beer, throw up, you name it from the night before! Let me tell you what Spaniards love to party, and they party HARD. 24/7. Hallelujah festivos is over. Anyway we waited for an hour until it started. What a sight! At first you saw people walking acting like it was no big deal, and then within seconds people RAN, SPRINTED for their lives. One bull stopped and charged right next to us. It was AMAZING. What a cool experience to have witnessed.

Waiting on the bulls

I have a video you'll have to all wait to see.  But it was Awesome!

I love being on a mission. It´s harder in ways I didn´t expect it to be, yes I knew my body would hurt, I would be tired 24/7. But I didn´t expect that loving these people and seeing them turn away from the truth would weigh you down like bricks. However, when someone does accept the Savior,  how beautiful that is! I believe that in that moment angels are singing. I´ve seen so many miracles. I love my savior so much. I am so honored to be here and to know the people of this ward! They have no shame in sharing the gospel with anyone they contact. They really know the meaning of every member a missionary. What examples they are to me. Please, help the missionaries back home. The work is not only for full time missionaries. The difference members make is incomprehensable. I know this church is true! I love my Savior. I know he is taking care of me, and my family.

Con Amor,

Hermana Shurtz