Emily @ Santander Week 3

Hello Everyone:
This week I got a letter from Sister Sarah in the mail, today actually. It got here really fast. I loved your letter Sister, thank you so much. I´ll try to write you back today, a REAL letter. Also an email from Dad, and sister Jessica. Dad I will have to comment on your e-mail in a private letter, oh my goodness! Thank you for always knowing how to make me laugh. Sister Jessica I am going to have to print yours off and read it later, but thank you so much for the letter, I love you. Mom I think you probably put one in the mail and it just hasn´t gotten here yet.

I hate writing this e-mail, sorry but its true. It is impossible to explain what is going on here. Plus I only have 45 minutes now and that is just no time at all. I will try to give you a glimpse of what my life is like right now. I´m still trying to accept that I´m here and that I´m a missionary.

Every week we go to a Independent Living Center and spend a couple of hours with this lady named Juani. She is so sweet and she always gives us cookies wrapped up in napkins that she steals fromt the kitchen. She has a friend Diego who comes and takes her on drives. So all four of us get in the car and drive around to all the pueblos is Spain, they are gorgeous. Once you get out of the city, its miles and miles of rolling green green hills. Diego always shows us some really beautiful places and then he takes us out for hot cocoa. Its my favorite couple hours of the week. I´ll send some pics. today of what it looks like where we went.

This week we went to a ladies home who is Catholic. She likes us to come over and visit her but not talk about the church. She treats us like royalty. She gets out nice china, napkins and serves us hot cocoa and crescents. She is a really special lady and its nice to just go over to her house and visit with her. Hopefully with time she will start allowing us to share the gospel with her, I think she will.

Olga continues to be our best investigator. She is always so kind to us and feeds us every time we come over. The Spirit is always there when we teach and I know she can feel it. But sometimes I think she gets really confused with all the information. The other day she asked us why the names in the book we gave her were different than the ones in the bible. That was after we had taught her all of lesson one. Also she asked us who is this José Smith? Again after we had taught her all of lesson 1. Hopefully we can get something to make sense for her in the next couple of visits. She is great and I hope she gets baptized. She came to church with us last Sunday.

Church is always really interesting here. The missionaries help it along A LOT. This Sunday we had a couple talks, suprisingly everyone showed up. One of them was about the Millenium and when Christ is going to come. Luckily I didn´t understand all of it, and its to bad that our investigator speaks Spanish, I think she got it all. I bet she will be baptized really soon. Our investigator also came with us to class, unfortunately. WE have two crazy old guys in there and every week they get stuck on something random so we never really hear a lesson. This week one of them wanted to know why in the picture in the BofM of Moroni, it looks like his fingers are cut off. We talked about it for at least 20 minutes. Also, one of them has some major word of wisdom problems and neither of them have showered for years. It makes a real nice setting for a doctrinal class for investigators. I got a bad headache from the smell and was excited when the hour was finally over. I am proud of them for making the effort to come to church at least.

My thought after this week, is that it is an absolute miracle that anyone gets baptized! The church is true, I know that but man for someone to get to that point, to get over all the stumbling blocks, it really is a miracle. We are teaching this really nice lady named Edna. We only have a couple things to work on. Number one she works every sunday so she can never come to church. Number 2, 3, 4...is that she has been married multiple times and right now she lives with the father of her daughter and he legally is her husband but also her boyfriend lives with her. She is married to the father of her daughter to give him citizenship so he can be here with their child. So ya once we help her work out all of that and help her gain a testimony we should be well on our way to baptism.

A couple days ago we took a bus home that went all along the coast. It was absolutely gorgeous and I can´t wait to come back here with you guys. There were lots of people surfing, DAD! You should look up on the internet how the surf is here. Well there is so much more that has happened but I am running out of time.

I´m sending you a package of pictures today and a letter. Let me know when it gets there. Sister your letter got here really fast. Mom just to let you know if you put iron pills in the letters it will take forever for them to get here because they will search it. Your so funny mom, I love you so much.

Well everyone the church is true and I´m thankful to be a member. I´m thankful to be a part of an eternal family that loves me and supports me. Heavenly Father loves all His children and I hope that I can help some of the people in Spain see and feel His love. We knocked a lot of doors this week and so many of them told us that they don´t believe in God. It breaks my heart! Thank you for all your letters, prayers and love. The work here is hard and sometimes I wonder why Heavenly Father chose me to serve here but I know someday it will all make sense. He knows us better than we know ourselves. I know I´m here for at least someone, ME and hopefully someone else. DAd:Thank you for the money. I bought a coat today and its really warm. It was nice for like one day and now its back to rain. I hope you all have a wonderful week. I love each one of you so much and think about you often.

Love,EM (hermana Gogarty)