Things here are really good! I´m loving it! I just love the mission! Okay, I have to share something really cool. Yesterday I was reading about Zaragoza and guess what year it was founded??? Just guess. Okay, 24 AD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What the heck??? I read it and was freaking out! This city is OLD. I guess it was founded by Cesar Augustus and was a port for the Roman Empire before it was conquered by the Arabics later. Man, Europe is just plain cool. The oldest city in the US is from what like 1700s? Anyway, pretty cool. I love Zaragoza! It's very nice and clean and safe! It's really big, but it doesn't have a big city feel--it feels really mellow and there's actually grass and trees and it's beautiful! Pretty much the opposite of Badalona haha. I love it though, it's a really nice city.
Things are really good here! The branch is doing well. Yesterday we had 94 people at church! Lately we've only had around 70, so this was super good! They are really good people. They are mostly Spaniards or Africans haha. The Spaniards are so fun. I have come to realize that Spaniard are very . . . passionate I guess. Whatever they believe they believe it with every fiber of their being and nothing can ever sway them from that haha. Every opinon they have is the most important one in the world and they have to share it with everyone. IT´s super funny cause they all have super strong personalities, but they are such good people and I just love them! There's so much to do in this branch and I'm so excited! There's a huge emphasis in this mission and everywhere to work with the members and I'm SO excited about it! That's something I've always wanted to do, but felt alone in it cause all the other missionaries thought we should spend all our time in the streets rather than visiting members. But now there's a huge focus on strengthening members and working with them and I LOVE IT! It's what I wanted to do this whole time, but was never supported in it. But now we are instructed to do it! Woohoo! I just love it so much. That's one of my favorite things is strengthening families in the church.
Anyway, after that little rant--our two part-member families are doing well! Alexander is doing great and is getting baptized in two weeks! He is so solid and is a huge example for his 2 little siblings and his inactive dad. We are working super super hard with the dad to get him active so he can baptize him! I love that family so much and they are just the cutest. We see them almost every night. Tonight we will teach them about eternal marriage and we made this cute poster with the temple and footprints to get there and how to do it. We are so excited!
This week we have found lots of menos activos and investigators! We have seen so many miracles together. We found this one woman who hasn't come to church in years because 4 of her kids have passed away from drugs--FOUR!! We are so sad for her, but are going to bring her back so she can have joy again! So many amazing miracles like that.
We also have had some funny things happen, like we passed by this one menos activo and she lied to us about who she was, and then just started barking at us and screaming at us to never come back and all this stuff. Whew! It was wild, but gotta love the craziness :)
Hermana Findlay is so amazing! She is such an example to me; she's an incredible missionary! We have so much fun together! We are always laughing, but we both have so much energy in the work right now that it's bouncing off each other and we both are just so excited to work and we are seeing so many miracles! It's so fun. She is the best. And she´s from Holladay! She lives right by Walmart. Crazy huh? So we have lots of fun talking about our common friends and stuff :) She is the best.
Okay so this week we had Enfoque--where the zone leaders tell us what President told them in their meeting--and it was awesome! They told us that the mission has a goal for June of finding 2000 new investigators--through the members! I almost got up and cheered when they said that cause that´s how I´ve been finding members this whole time, but I got criticized for not being in the street enough--but now we´re all working with members! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! But we all got on our knees right there and said a prayer that we would reach this goal. The Spirit was so strong and we know it´s going to happen! It gave us tons of animo and we´re so excited! This month is going to be amazing!
Okay, so here are some of my thoughts that I had this week. This week I read the talk "How to Become a Consecrated Missionary" by Tad Callister (Dad´s cousin, right?). And it changed my whole mission! It said that all missions have good, even great missionaries, but only a few consecrated missionaries. It talks about laying everything on the altar for the Lord. One line has stuck with me so much this week--it says that we must give every ounce of energy, every drop of passion, and every waking thought to this work. That struck me so hard! So this week I decided I am going to work to become not just a good or great missionary, but a consecrated missionary. I have SO SO far to go, but it´s my goal :) So this week I decided I would live with no regrets--I want to give everything I have to the Lord, not holding anything back. So every time I thought about something other than the work, I changed my thoughts; every time I almost didn't contact someone cause I was too tired, I just did it--it´s a process, but I´m trying, and I know the Lord is blessing my efforts, even though they are weak. The talk also talks about laying every ounce of pride on the altar of sacrifice. I have so much pride, and this week I have been working on laying it all down and just giving it to the Lord. It's been so amazing cause the Lord has blessed my efforts and I've been so much happier (I was really happy before, but this is different), we've seen more miracles, and I go to bed every night knowing there´s nothing more I could've given. Anyway, I have so far to go, but these are just the thoughts I´ve had this week. Dad, if you ever talk to Tad Callister, tell him he changed my entire mission! I know the Lord blesses our efforts, no matter how weak or small they may be. But he blesses them and consecrates them for our good and the good of others.
I love this work so much! I love you all SO SO much! Thank you for all your support and love! I couldn´t do this without you, really I couldn´t. I love you all more than you even know! Have the best first week of summer!
Love, Hermana Boyer :) (Bo- Yeh as they say it here) :)
These are my roommates! I love them so much!
This is at a Specialized Training with Hermana Findlay and President and Hermana Pace! I love them so much.
Hermana Findlay and I in front of a castle in Zaragoza! :)
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