#45

Hey Hey! So this week has been crazy and emotional and wonderful! I spent my last couple days in Benidorm well, I absolutely LOVE my little family there with all my heart. I feel bad for the people who don´t get the opportunity to serve in branches during their missions, I got so close to all of them, and I seriously just felt so good being there, I love the Benidorm branch.  But also, something we realized is that there is SO MUCH WORK THERE. Benidorm kinda gets a reputation for being a tough area with not a lot of work, but once we tried breaking out of the cycle of visiting the same people every week it helped us to see that that area has tons of potential, and I know Hna Garcia is doing so well with it up there! The last night I just spent hours and hours cleaning and packing...I never got the chance to sleep but it was okay! Hna Garcia got super sick and it was so sad, and I still hauled her around all Tuesday night to say goodbye to people, she´s such a trooper!  But yeah, so I spent all night doing that, and then the next morning we headed out from Benidorm at 7 30am. It was actually funny because I called one of our investigators Tues. night to say goodbye to her, because we werent gonna have time to go to her house, and she told us she was going to Alicante Wednesday morning too! So we were on the same bus and that was fun. And then from there in Alicante, me and some other missionaries headed out towards the direction of Málaga! It was a fun bus ride, and even though it´s 8 hrs it never feels like it to me. I love it! I think I slept for like 45 mintues so that was good.  I got to know some more missionaries, and it was a great, beautiful ride.  Then when I got here to Málaga, I met Hna Cameron, who is so great! Oh my goodness I freaking love her already. She´s from Idaho and is so cute and athletic and smart, and I´m so excited to be working with her. I have learned a ton from her already! During the week of finding, the week where all over the mission we really focused on finding new people in our areas to teach the gospel to, her and her companion found over 30 new investigators! So we´ve got a lot of work ahead of us! She is ending her mission December 10, so I´ll be ´´killing´´ her.  I´m sad I´ll only get a transfer with her, but hey, I´ll just be grateful for it! 

It´s a little nerve wracking because since she´s ending so soon, I´ll only have a transfer to learn this area. And most likely I´ll get a companion who´s never been a S.H.E. (sister training leader) before. We also do intercambios (interchanges) like, once or twice a week with the Hermanas in our area, which includes Granada, Almería, Fuengirola, and the 4 companionships of Hermana´s here in Málaga. I´m excited to work with all of them, they all seem awesome! But yeah, for the first couple week´s I´ll be the one to leave the area, since I don´t know it well enough yet, and after that I´ll stay here for intercambios, which means it´ll be on me to know the area well enough to work it without anyone else´s help. Hahaha it´s rough. But i´m excited, it just means I have to try harder than I ever have before! I seriously am just trying to memorize streets and houses and keep my eyes alert. Ha, and church, oh my it was great! It was so different, I´m used to our lil branch of 40ish in Benidorm, and here there are 2 wards that go to the same church building (there are 4 wards total in Málaga), and our ward alone has like 150 people that come weekly! Um yeah, I have a goal of knowing everyone´s name by my 3rd Sunday here, so yesterday I was just talking to everyone, and as I was fasting I just had the most sincere prayer in my heart, asking Heavenly Father to help me memorize their names and faces. I just know how important working with the members is, and I want their trust and I want relationships with them like the ones I have with the members of Benidorm.  I know it won´t be the same, cuz it´s not the same size and there are other missionaries here, but I know with the Lord´s help He´ll expand my mind and help me do things I couldn´t do on my own!  Also knowing Spanish a little better is helping me out too, jaja.

It was so great, my first night here we had english class and a weekly noche de hogar that we do with ward 2 (i´m in ward 1). Hna Cameron and I had the lesson, and she had decided we´d teach lesson 1, the restoration. I´ve taught that a million times but I was so nervous, also, unlike giving talks in Benidorm, there are other missionaries there too which for some reason always makes me more nervious (for this reason I need lots of prayers this week, because at zone meeting Hna Cameron and I give talks in front of only other missionaries...in Spanish, haha I know I´ve been here for 11 months but I´m still way scared. Not to mention our zone is the biggest in the mission. Seriously your prayers are very very welcomed!)  but it went well. There´s this cute return missionary in our ward who gave us a paper after that said ´´Advice´´ and had notes on things we could do better. It was cute and I had a great time getting to know the members and missionaries!

Then on Friday we didn´t do anything for Halloween #lame. There was a Halloween party for the young single adults that the Castillos (senior missionary couple that I love!) put on.  We taught a lesson in the church to one of the recent converts in our area (His name is Michael, he´s from Nigeria and speaks english! It was so weird, we taught a few lessons in english this week which was 1) a little difficult just because I´m used to using spanish words to explain the Book of Mormon and the gospel and 2) made me think that i´d probably be a better missionary in english and then realized even more I got sent to Spain to be humbled through this language and to learn, which i have). But yeah this guy is amazing! He has such a strong testimony. He met the missionaries here this summer and was baptized in 10 days, and is golden! Ah, I really do love our ward and investigators. We were very blessed this week to have people put in our path! More than a few times we were in the houses of less active people, and investigators and they had family there, or friends walked in and we were able to introduce them to the gospel. 

Tonight we have concilio, which is like a meeting with the zone leaders and sister training leaders and ap´s at President Deere´s house and I´m excited! I´m excited to learn and see friends from all over the mission! Thank you for your prayers and wish me luck! 

Love, Hermana Miller

Mosiah 4:16-21