Castles, Coughs, and Contacts

Hola familia!!

Que pasa?? I´m so sorry it took me longer to write today! We went to Tibidabo this morning!!!!! Like, the most famous castle in Barcelona! It was unreal!

But how are you all doing?? How was everyone´s week? How is the nasty inversion? Ugh I hate those haha. You´ve all been skiing it up I hear??? Ah, I'm so jealous it hurts haha. Today on the metro they showed a skiing video and I got butterflies in my stomach haha. I miss it so much!!

This week flew so fast!!! Things are good in Badalona!!! We are working super hard. I had probably the worst cold I've ever had this week haha, but that´s okay!!! We´ve been working super hard anyway. On Wednesday we contacted all day in the rain and it started my cold all over again haha. But that´s all right, I didn´t mind. I learned the hard way that cold medicine from Spain makes you incredibly sleepy haha. But it´s cool--who needs medicine anyway?!

Okay we have an investigator!!!! So remember Cesar--the guy who was totally drunk when we had a cita with him?? We had a real one this week!!! He was so good. He really is so humble and so ready for the Gospel, he just has some problems to deal with haha. But ah, I love him so much! So we had a Lesson 0-- where we teach them about the Book of Mormon, teach them how to pray, and invite them to baptism. In our mission, we are supposed to invite people to be baptized the first lesson haha. It´s so scary! I´m still praying to gain a testimony of that because it scares people haha. But President Pace is really strong on that, so I'm going to do it. So we taught him about the Book of Mormon and he was so excited--he pulled out a highlighter and colored Moroni´s promise! That probably doesn´t sound like anything special, but for an investigator, that´s huge! It was so cute. We tried to commit him to baptism, but he didn´t want to because he was afraid he´d disappoint us. But we´ll try again this week :) But the best part was that after we taught him to pray, he said his first prayer and he loved it! After, he kept saying how good he felt and that he had never felt like that before. Yay!!! Investigators' first prayers are the best thing ever. The only problem with him is that he plays soccer with his friends every Sunday and he doesn´t want to give it up cause he´s been doing it for like 20 years. But we are going to keep trying--yesterday we went to his house to get him for church anyway haha but he had already gone. But he is super good and we are going to get him baptized!!!!
So Enrique, the guy who went to Sweden, we haven´t heard from and he´s not answering his phone. Gabriel--the super good investigator, doesn´t answer our calls either and we are super sad. Story of our lives haha! But that´s okay!

So this week we contacted like crazy! We tried to talk to at least 50 people everyday! The first day we talked to 57 people and the 41st was the first one who listened to us haha. But that´s all right, we had a lot of fun anyway. It feels so good to talk to that many people and leave them with a card at least. But we got some numbers and addresses this week so hopefully those work out!

So Nelly, the woman we found from Bolivia who is a member, is amazing! We visit her every week and she is so strong. This week we watched the Restoration video with her and it was the best! She loved it so much. She told us about her life and she has been through some heart-wrenching things, and we just cried together. She told us how much she loves us coming and how grateful she is to have the Gospel back in her life. I feel as strongly about her as I do about Jose, who we baptized--it´s the same joy as a baptism because we brought her back to the Gospel! Well, the Lord did it all, we were just the hands and feet for it. But I love her so much, she is so sweet and I just love her family too!!!!

Rosalia, who we met in her bar, fed us this week. She is super sweet, but doesn´t want to listen to our messages or anything. Her daughter does though, and she´s super good. We are still trying to get her to church. But we will make it happen--we are bringing that family back no matter what it takes!!!!

So, Spanish is coming along!!! I´m realizing that my Spanish is a lot better than when I first got here haha. I used to find myself translating my thoughts into Spanish, but now I just find myself thinking in Spanish, so that's good! I can understand a lot better now, which helps a ton. I can say pretty much what I want to, but I'm still working on my grammar haha. Spanish pronunciation and vocab is a piece of cake, but man the grammar is wild! Subjunctive is a whole different way of speaking and it´s crazy! But I´m getting it down and I love it. The biggest thing I'm learning is how to have my personality in Spanish haha. But I´m learning how to tease people and have fun and express myself in Spanish and it´s so fun. I love it!!!!!!

Today was so so so fun!!! We went to Tibidabo--a really old castle with a cathedral inside that is on a hill overlooking all of Barcelona. It has a huge figure of Christ that you can see from all over the city! It´s amazing--the view was gorgeous!!!!! The elders brought food and we had a picnic at the top, right at the base of the statue´s feet with the prettiest view ever haha. It was so fun! Then we went to the beach--just looked out over the ocean and it´s so pretty I can barely stand it. I got really homesick for Balboa for a second when we were standing on the pier and smelling the sea air!!! Ah, it was so fun! I love Spain so so so much!!!!!!! Last preparation day we went to a huge mall and we went shopping with the elders. It was funny cause the European elders--our district leader from Austria, and two elders in our district from London-- knew everything about fashion, telling us what looks good on us and stuff. The American elders had no clue about anything of course haha. It was funny!

Well, life is really good here!! I´m learning that numbers are important here, but not everything. Sometimes it's kind of hard being in the same ward as the other 2 sets of elders, who baptize every week. But we are being super obedient, we are working as hard as we can, and we have a lot of faith--so the Lord is definitely blessing us with miracles. I´m learning that no effort goes wasted and that even if we aren't baptizing every week, we are still affecting people. Even today at Tibidabo we got talking to a man from Mexico and his wife and he said, "Oh wait, I was baptized into your church when I was younger!" He asked a ton about it and was super excited cause he had forgotten. Even little things like that make a huge difference in people´s lives. Hermana Tyler and I are doing more behind-the-scenes work--bringing lots of less actives back and strengthening ward members that need it, planting lots of seeds everywhere. It´s not the spotlight work that the elders have--baptizing all the time, but it´s wonderful. I have faith that the Lord has blessings in store for us every day and I´m so grateful for that. I love this Gospel so much! Every chance I have to bear my testimony is a huge blessing and I love it. I love every minute of this work, no matter how hard it is. I wouldn't be anywhere else!

I love you all so much it hurts! Thank you a thousand times over for your prayers and your love and your letters and support! I cant believe how lucky I am to have the best family in the world! I love you all so so so so much!!!!

Love, Hermana Boyer :)

PS: I´ve been kicking myself for not knowing more about all your missions because I was so young when they happened! Any stories, advice, regrets, anything you have- tell me! I would love to hear more about them and I've been thinking about them a lot!!!! I love you all!

PS again: I will try to send pictures but this computer I'm on is ancient so I don´t think it can haha. Also the keyboard is super trippy, so I´m sorry my spelling is the worst!

Email from Badalona

My beautiful family!!! How are you????? Happy Martin Luther King Day! I totally forgot about that holiday! So exciting. Yay for racial freedom :) How is everyone? So everyone´s freezing it up in Holladay and probably everywhere else too? I heard y'all went skiing- I'm SO jealous!! I miss it so much it´s unreal. But that´s okay!!!! I hope everyone´s birthdays were super fun too!!! Thank you so much for all the letters!!! I love hearing about your lives so much!!!! Thank you so so much for all your support--I am definitely the most spoiled missionary out there. Actually probably just the most spoiled little sister ever. But thank you SO MUCH!!!!!

This week was the fastest week I´ve had here because we were busy!! Yay!!!!!!!!! So on Tuesday we were calling all these people--references, people we contacted, etc. and usually they either don´t answer, or just tell us they don´t want to meet with us. But this time a whole bunch of people answered and we got a ton of citas!!! (appointments)!!! We were so excited!!!! So it turned out that a ton of them fired on us--they were either "at the doctor" at 9 at night- who does that? or they just didn´t answer or all these other things, BUT. . . . .we have 2 investigators now!!!!!! We are so so excited!!!!!

So one of them is named Gabriel and he´s a reference from the Elders. He´s from Ecuador and he´s the happiest man I think I´ve ever met. We taught him about the BOM this week and he was excited! He said he would read and everything. The only problem . . . he didn´t come to church. But that´s okay! The other one is named Enrique and he´s from Columbia. He is super spiritual and he´s really interested in our church. He´s super prepared! Only problem . . . he´s leaving tomorrow for Sweden and he doesn´t know when he´ll get back. But that´s okay! I will not give up on him!!! (I will highly likely be here for 3 more months, so I can keep track of these people and make sure they get baptized :) haha. But anyway, we are so excited!! Huge miracle!!!!! It felt so good to be busy!!!!!

So you were asking about Cesar--our drunkard friend. Ah, Cesar. We had citas with him twice this week, and both times he fired on us saying he was gone or working or something--but apparently he is still dying to meet with us he says. So ya. It´s dumb. But that´s okay. We know where he lives, so we basically stalk his house and it´s great.

The menos activo families that we found last week are good!!! Nelly--the one whose door we knocked and she´s golden--is SO good! She came to church and brought her granddaughter and she´s so comfortable! We gave her a lesson on Saturday and told her how wonderful she is and she was all teary. She is SO sweet, I can´t even tell you what a miracle she is.

The other family--who own the bar--are good. The young girl who was really interested isn´t answering her phone, so we don´t know what´s going on. But we are eating with them tonight, so we will figure it out! We visit the mom at her bar a lot though and she´s so sweet. We are just trying to get her trust so she´ll tell us why she´s so against the church right now.

So life is good!!!!! A bunch of you have asked about the ward--they are AMAZING! Our ward is famous in our mission for being so good. Our bishop is so gung-ho about missionary work and he knows exactly who our investigators are and where they are and everything. They are all so good. The retention in this ward is incredible because we are the highest baptizing ward in the mission, and we KEEP them all!!! This ward is SO good at taking care of all the recent converts and everything. Ah, I love this ward so much it´s unreal.
Okay a couple things about this week let´s see:

-I ate cerviche--which is octopus--and loved it!!! I know right? It was so good! I was so surprised. Now I eat chicken legs and steak without even blinking an eye. You can have this in writing--but I have been missing out all these years!!!! haha I can´t believe I´m saying this but it´s true. But I am becoming quite the carnivore and you will all die when I get home. So there. I said it.

-We were contacting and all the sudden had this HUGE thunderstorm come down!!! I heard the thunder and without thinking I looked around to count my girls haha. #Brightoncounselorforever

-We made a friend in a candy shop by us and we visit him a lot. He is a classic Catalan man--very nice, lots of opinions, very Catholic, and loves talking to us haha. We are going to convince him slowly and I´m excited for it!

-This guy from India hit on me on the Metro one night, followed us on to our stop, then followed us off and would NOT leave us alone! Hermana Tyler was so mad at him that she basically chewed him out and then grabbed me and we ran haha. One thing you should know--I stick out like the sorest thumb there ever was. Yesterday on the Metro there was a guy who DIDN¨T double take at us, and I was thanking him in my head cause he was the first man I´ve seen here that didn´t gawk at us. It´s weird. But that´s okay.

-I lost my voice cause I have quite the nasty cold (but don´t worry- nothing will keep me in piso, I am going to work no matter what haha). But I lost it on Friday and Saturday- when we had days full of citas. Nice try Satan! Haha. But it´s still gone and I sound like Anna on Christmas! :)

-This week there was the CUTEST dog that looked exactly like Zeke. We aren´t supposed to touch animals, but he came up to me on the Metro and put his head in my lap. I was trying to look away and pretend like I wasn´t dying inside. Finally I broke down and got on the ground and played with him and cooed at him like I do with Cokes and the whole metro was laughing. When we got off I apologized to Hermana Tyler, but she just laughed and said "it´s more like a guideline anyway."

I think that´s about all for this week! Life is good! Our mission is on fire--we learned this morning that there are 44 people with fechas--baptismal dates for this week!!!!!! That is UNREAL: last year the highest number in one week was 23. Our mission is on fire and I´m so grateful to be part of this work! It´s hard cause we don´t baptize every week like the elders do, but we are trying our hardest. Our work is a little more behind the scenes, strengthening people, and things like that. But I know that this is the Lord´s work and I love every minute of it, even the super frustrating ones. This Church is so true! The Gospel is what brings us joy in this life and I'm so grateful for the chance to share it, even in small ways. I love you all so so so much and can´t thank you enough for all you do for me! Have such a wonderful week!!!! ¡Les quiero muchísimo!!!!

Hermana Boyer :)

Pictures from Badalona

Okay, I feel so bad I forgot to mention Katie in the Happy Birthdays!!! Tell her Happy Birthday for me!!!! I hope so much that you all have wonderful birthdays! I love you all SO SO MUCH!!!!

This is me in front of the Sagrada Famila! Unfortunately, my camera was so overwhelmed with its beauty that it died for the first time in a year--so I don´t have any pictures from it haha. But I will have Hermana Tyler send me some :)

This is the view from the top of the Sagrada! I love my city!!

This is us lost in the mountains- it´s supposed to be an ugly face haha

Miracles and Drunkards: The Best and the Worst

Familia!!!! How are you all???? Ah, I always get so excited to email you that I don´t know what to do with myself haha. How are you all!!! Happy birthdays!!!!!! To Ben, Mini and Beth and Liza next week!!! Holín (my Spanish exclamation) I can´t believe Beth is 1! Ah, that´s so crazy. I hope all the birthdays have been super fun! Okay, so forget what I said last week about my address not working here--it does!!!! On Thursday, I opened the mailbox here and had 6 letters!!!! And I've kept getting them ever since haha. I guess the mail was shut down for 2 weeks during the holidays (people in Spain find every excuse not to work haha I love it). But this address works! Mom, Martha, Anna, and Spencer thank you SO Much for your letters and pictures! I about died at the pictures, they make me so so so happy. There is nothing better than printed pictures as I´m pretty sure :) Thank you so so so much! So yes, write me here--it works! Sorry I´m so crazy haha. Anyway, thank you so much for all your love and support, I love you all so much!

Wow, this was quite a week haha. So I will give you the bad news first and then the really good news! So we had citas with our investigators (appointments), but every one of them fell through haha. We contacted--oh Dad, to answer your question--contacting is just when we walk the streets talking to people. :) We contacted a guy on the Metro that was super ready and we felt good about him, but he fired on us. But this week hopefully we can teach him. Every single cita fell through haha. It was pretty sad. 

So remember our golden investigator that we knocked his piso and found him? Okay we had a cita with him on Saturday, so we went to his building, rang the timbre (here everyone lives in huge apartment buildings and you push a button and they ask who it is and open the door from their apartment)--and nobody answered. I was so mad (not really mad--you know, like my kind of mad) that I jammed the timbre and held it there for like 10 seconds. To my surprise, a head poked over a balcony 6 stories above us and yelled down, "What!!!" He opened the door, so we went upstairs. Cesar (the golden investigator) and his friends all staggered out and were absolutely plastered. It was unreal. I thought people were drunk at Journey concerts, but that was nothing compared to these guys haha. So his friends left and we were like "Cesar! What the heck!!!" He told us he was sorry and all this stuff. We couldn´t have a real conversation with him cause he was just wasted. So we left. Hopefully later this week we can call him up and have an excellent Lesson 4 about the Word of Wisdom haha. Just kidding. It was just funny.

But--we had two crazy huge miracles!!! So the Elders gave us a reference in their area of a lady who is less active that they have never been able to find. So we called her and she said to come to her bar and talk to her. We only knew the name of the street, not the name of the bar, what she looks like, or anything. So we set out to find it. It was a huge miracle cause we ran into a member and she told us where the street was, and the bar was the first one we tried! So it turns out this lady was the Relief Society President in Ecuador, but ever since they´ve lived here for the past 10 or so years, they´ve been inactive. She said she didn´t want to come back to church, but she was super sweet to us and bought us drinks and stuff (just soda--don´t worry,we didn´t pull a Cesar :) ). But--her daughter who is our age was super fun and sweet and we had a lesson with her right in the bar! She said she´s loved the church this whole time and she wants to come back! She was so excited we found her and she´s coming back to church with us! It was a HUGE miracle.

Another huge miracle!!!! Okay we were knocking pisos--this is an adventure cause we have to try all these apartment building doors and see if they are open or not. So we ended up in this super sketchy area that we normally would never proselyte in, but somehow we just ended up there and there was a door open. So we knocked that piso and got some crazy harsh rejections. Finally we knocked this one door and a lady opened the door and just smiled so much and told us to come in--as if she had been expecting us. She was so happy!!!! It turns out she and her 3 sons are all members!!! They haven´t gone to church since they´ve lived here in Spain--they are from Bolivia and have lived here 7 years. But she is super strong and faithful--she was so excited to come back! AH!!! So she came to church with us yesterday and was so happy and peaceful and she fit right in. It was incredible. She said her sons want to come next week. So amazing! We haven´t had luck with our investigators, but finding these families and bringing them back to church is just as exciting as baptisms because these people have already made covenants and are more accountable if they don´t come. It's so amazing to find them because nobody in our ward knew about these families! So amazing.

A few other things about this week:

We went to the Sagrada Familia--one of the biggest cathedrals in the world--for Preparation Day last Monday and it was Incredible!!!! Oh my gosh I can´t even tell you how pretty it was. It´s not like other cathedrals in that it feels odd and smells like incense and stuff. I totally felt the Spirit there--it was absolutely  stunning. I cried both times we walked in the main room--I know I'm so dumb! But it was honestly the prettiest thing I´ve ever seen besides the inside of the temple! It was amazing.

Also, we had transfers this week, so we got 2 new elders! They are so great. One is from Austria and he´s our new district leader. No, he hasn´t seen the Sound of Music sadly. But he´s super funny and down to earth and speaks perfect English and Spanish. The other is from Sandy and is super hard working and he´s such a good missionary. So that´s exciting!

Also, this week we went to visit a member who is super lonely, but so so sweet and spiritual. She lives in the mountains!!! We took the bus to the top of the mountain, then walked down the highway until we found her little town. We were quite a spectacle as 2 American girls walking down the highway in skirts looking at a map and taking pictures, completely lost haha. Oh the adventures. But being in the mountains was SO PRETTY! It made me miss the Utah mountains so much I could barely stand it! It smelled like sagebrush and instantly I was home haha it was crazy. It was so pretty. We are going to hike next week I think, which would make me SO HAPPY!

Well, life is so good! This week was hard, but the Lord is blessing us so much. We are doing all we can and I know the Lord is blessing us and leading us to people. This week I realized that the Lord really does number His people--He´s aware of each person and their needs. He definitely, without a doubt, led us to those two families so that they could come back to church. He knew they were there and sent us as His agents to find them. I know that He really is the Great Shepherd and He goes after every one of those that falls away. I feel so blessed to be an instrument in the bringing back of these lost sheep.

I love you all so so so much!!!! Thank you a thousand times over for your love, support and everything! I can´t thank the Lord enough that I have the most wonderful family in the world! ¡Les amo MUCHISIMO!!!!!

Con amor, Hermana Boyer :)

Email from Badalona

Familia! ¿Cómo estan? Feliz día de los Reyes!

The festivities in Spain never end I decided- there´s always a party haha!!!! But how was everyone´s New Years??? I can´t believe it´s 2014!! That is so wild. What did everyone do? It sounds like it was pretty mellow on Butternut! How was the Hobbit? I´m jealous I bet it was super good! I am so so so sorry I didn´t email yesterday! So every 6th preparation day is on Tuesday because of transfers- so today is my p day instead. I´m so sorry! I promise I didn´t forget about yall :) So it´s freezing in Utah and even colder in Cincinatti eh? Dang that is so crazy! I can´t even imagine being in the negatives!!! Here it is brisk, but not freezing. I think we´re in the 50s ish but the humidity makes it colder. During the day it´s not bad but sometimes when we contact at night we are freezing! But that´s okay!

I can´t believe I survived my first transfer in the field! It went so fast, it´s unreal. I feel like so much happened this week, I don´t even know. Let´s see. . Well, New Years was crazy. It´s a huge deal here in Spain!!! So New Years Eve was crazy cause there was nobody out cause everyone was partying, but we contacted for 6 hours! I have never been rejected so much in my life haha. We started counting rejections to make it fun and in half an hour we got to like 25. It was awesome! But we had a HUGE miracle on New Years eve!! So earlier in the day we knocked a piso (apartment building). The first door we knocked, a guy peeked out and said he was busy. We asked him if we could give him a card really fast and we ended up telling him about the Book of Mormon. He told us about all the trials he´s had recently and how he wants to become closer to God to get through them. We told him about the Book of Mormon and he got so excited! He was like "this is what´s going to strengthen me right?" YES!!!!! We were so happy! We have a cita with him on Thursday! We called him a few days ago and he said he´s been thinking about us and how we left such an impression on him (this time it´s not an attraction thing- cause he´s middle aged and has a family so it´s legit!) and he´s been reading the Book of Mormon and loves it. YAY!!!! Such a miracle I can´t stop smiling just thinking about it.

But for New Years night we could be out til 11, so at 10 we hung out with the elders in the capilla. We played Bang and ate brownies and were all so tired we could barely sit straight in our chairs, but of course- that made it all the more fun! Here in Spain they have a tradition where the 12 seconds before midnight you eat one grape at each dong of the clock- so your mouth is completely full of grapes haha. We did it to 10 and it was really fun. It was weird not counting til 12, but we heard it in our beds from our neighbors so that was good :)

The next day we had a zone enfoque and it was amazing! Our zone leaders told us that we had 580 baptisms in our mission last year!!! WOW!!! And the goal for this year- 1500!!! AH! So good. And we are in Europe!!! So amazing. This year is going to be amazing cause the surge of missionaries that came last year are out of training and ready to work- I´m so excited!

This week we had lots of lessons, but something happened with all of them- they were either not in our area, Muslim, gypsy, or too intense so we handed them to the elders haha. But that´s okay! We will get some soon, I know it :) Our Elders are on fire- they have tons of investigators, so it´s super fun to watch them. Everyone calls our area the Grinch area haha cause it´s so hard. But I know that we will find people and I´m excited for that! We are doing TONS of contacting, which is fun, and super hard. But we have so much fun talking and laughing together and talking to all sorts of crazy people. We talked to one Catalan man that was so cute and old and he took us into this beautiful cathedral and had us watch some of the services- so that was fun. We just have adventures everyday contacting and it´s so funny. We laugh so hard and that´s what's keeping us going haha. But we are so tired everyday cause some days we don´t have any appointments so we contact for 6 hours straight! It´s unreal- but we make it fun and we laugh so hard. Hermana Tyler is the best!

So yesterday was Día de los Reyes! It´s a huge holiday here in Spain- bigger than Christmas! So they have the tradition that the kings- the 3 kings in the nativity bring gifts to the kids during the night- so yesterday morning was like Christmas morning for everyone. So on Sunday night we went to the giant parade that goes through all the streets and it was so fun! There were all these different kings throwing candy and performers and all this stuff! It was magical. Yesterday we didn´t do anything to celebrate other than eating at McDonalds and contacting for 6 hours :) But it was so fun to be a part of that!

So this week I read Alma 32 and instead of thinking of the analogy of the seed as faith, I thought of it as the work here in Badalona. It was amazing to read it that way! It says that if you nourish the seed with faith, patience nad hard work, you will eventually taste fruit more sweet and pure than any we have tasted before. I know that is what we are doing here! This area is new and super hard because it´s all Spaniards, Catalans, and gypsies, but it´s amazing! I know we are planting so many seeds and eventually the work here will be on fire too. I can´t wait to come back someday and have there be a stake here or something. I´m so grateful to be a part of the early part of this work! It´s amazing!! It´s super hard work- I don´t think I´ve ever been this tired (well, Brighton definitely rivals this haha), and our bodies are so sore everyday, but its´so worth it! We are seeing so many small miracles and I know that the Lord is blessing our efforts. I love this work!!! I wouldn´t trade it for anything.

Ah I love you all so much! Thank you SO much for every prayer, all your support and love and eveything!! Mom and Martha- I´m so sorry, I haven´t gotten your letters you told me about yet, but they will come! The mail has been shut down for all the festivities- so I don´t know if it´s cause of that or if this address doesn´t work. So I´m thinking it might be safer to write to the mission home haha. But I´m so excited for them and I appreciate them so much! I love you all more than anything in the world!

Love, Hermana Boyer :)


This is my "oh my gosh I´m in Spain at the beach, is this real life?!" face :)


This is in the rich part of our area where all the Spaniards live and it´s gorgeous!!! I love the sea!!!!


This monkey guy is a symbol of the beer company haha. but we liked it cause it´s on the beach :)


This is us at the Dia de los Reyes parade!!!