One Year What?

Hello family!!!!!!!!! 

How are you all doing??? I hope you are all doing wonderfully! :) Thank you so much for the letters, Spencer and Martha! I loved them so much! You guys are the best!

Wow, I seriously cannot believe I left a year ago today!!!!! It´s the weirdest thing ever. I feel like I just barely got here and am a brand new missionary, but I also feel like I've been a missionary forever and home is just a dream haha. It´s so crazy! The weirdest part, though, is that I leave Zaragoza in 2 weeks!!! I will miss it so much. All the members are already talking about it haha cause I have been here for so long. It´s so funny--seriously, about 40% of the people we contact are like, "Oh yeah, I've already talked to you before, I remember 'cause of your hair." haha And whenever I get on the bus, I look to see if there´s anyone I know, and usually there is haha. It´s wild. I love it here so much. I can't stand the thought of leaving the people here.

This week has been crazy in Zaragoza! So Zaragoza is the home of the pilar--the giant cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This week they have had huge festivals to celebrate the virgin. Yesterday everyone--I mean like thousands of people--went to the pilar dressed in the traditional clothing of their ancestors, and they have this giant pyramid dedicated to the Virgin, and they put flowers on it. It is so cool!!!! They have all these markets and dancing, and everyone is dressed up like in the 1600s. It´s amazing! Also, everyone in the world is drunk haha. It´s funny. But it´s been so interesting to see! We were walking around today looking at it and just freaking out that we live in Europe! Ah, it still blows my mind :)

This week was full of miracles! One of the best was Juliana! Juliana is a less-active we found on the tram about 3 months ago. She is a young mom living with her boyfriend from Ecuador. She left the church when she got here as a teenager and when we found her, she didn't believe God existed or anything. She didn't want to come back and was kind of harsh against the church. But we've been working with her a lot and trying to work through her doubts, and yesterday she came to church! She said that she felt so much peace and that she wants to come back and be active and repent and everything! She had an interview with the branch president to get everything figured out, and she is going to start coming back for reals. It´s incredible that change that has come over her--she has a completely different countenance than when we first met her. It´s amazing! It was the biggest miracle, and the branch just ate her up when she came :)

Another miracle: so the Amigó family FINALLY came back from vacation, and I have thought for a long time that I would love it if President Pace could visit them. So last night I realized that President would be here for interviews the same day we were going to visit that family. We called President and he said he can come with us! Ah, I am SO exited. Seriously, this could make all the difference for this family, because he always says he has been abandoned by the mission and the stake and ah! I am just so excited. I get butterflies every time I think about it, cause I´m so excited and so nervous haha. I will tell you how it goes!

Also, so the past few weeks, the activities have been dead with school starting and all these things. And the missionaries all lost faith in them and stopped caring. But I have seen how many miracles come from them and the difference they made in the branch. So I kept pushing everyone to support them. Finally this week I got everyone together and was like, "Okay guys, I´m going out of Zaragoza big--we´re making every activity epic!" I was looking outside one day and saw a barbecue in the back of the church when I had this brilliant idea of a campfire :) So we got everyone super stoked, got it advertised and all this stuff--and the activity was the BEST!!!!!!! TONS of people came! Like half the branch at least!!! We had a campfire with smores, roasted Starburst (thanks, Lindsay!), had a guitar, and everything. They had never made smores, so it was so fun! It was seriously one of the funnest nights of my entire life!!!!!!!!! I was so happ,y I could barely stand it. Everyone in the branch was so happy, and it was just magical. Purely magical.

Well, things are good :) I love Zaragoza with all my heart. Thinking about leaving these people in two weeks just rips my heart out, because I love them more than I ever thought I could. Seriously, my bonds with the people here are so strong--they literally are like part of my family. :) But I am just so grateful for the chance to love. I have realized on the mission that nothing we do in the work of the Lord can be done without love. The Lord came here to love us, and we must love others. Not love them because we are supposed to, but because we know their lives and their stories and their families and we have spent time getting to know them and listening to their sorrows. We have laughed together, cried together, and grown together. That´s what the work of the Lord is about. Love. :) And I´m preaching to the choir here, cause I come from the most loving family in the whole world. Thank you for loving me so that I can love others. :)

I love you all so much I can barely stand it! Thank you so much for all you do for me! Have a wonderful week! :)

Love, Hermana Boyer :)

This is the campfire! It was so magical, I can´t even explain.

This is Hermana Bennett and me with a member named Olga dressed in her traditional clothes :)

This is me in front of the huge pyramid dedicated to the Virgin Mary with all the flowers people have put.