The Fun is Half Way Over!!

Dear family and friends,

Wow I can’t believe that it has already been a year. I remember crying in the MTC just like it was yesterday and now I am here in Castellon a year out in the mission. I still feel like a brand new missionary sometimes though, it is pretty crazy. This is pretty nuts to think about all the things that have happened and to see how far I have come but at the same time, how fast it has all gone by.  Only one more year left!!

Well this has been a slow week seeing as I have been stuck in the cama for what feels like forever. I have had a fever way bad and been on the toilet way too much...and another Elder in the piso has the same thing so we are both just stuck in bed. And we have watched every church movie that exists on this planet. Believe it or not I wasn’t happy during that time!! I was very frustrated to be sick in bed with a fever because I wanted to be out working with Elder Soumarett and missing church about killed me. I love going to church so much. I couldn’t leave Sunday, Hermana Pace grounded me. I was in Friday afternoon then tried to go out and work Saturday afternoon which now I know was a bad idea because my fever came back that night. So I pray and hope that after today I will be 100 percent better.  Elder Cappellucchi and I mustered up enough strength to come down and email. But my miracle has to be the ward. They showed us so much love and a lot of the members sent us cards and texts telling us to feel better and some made us sopas to eat. And it warmed my heart to feel their love. They truly love us, and that just makes me want to work harder and be more worthy to help this ward out anyway that I can.

But other than that, my Chileno companion and I are working super hard and trying to pick this place back up again; talking with every person, knocking a million doors and visiting all the members.  We got threatened to have the cops called on us like 3 times last week, all by old Spanish men who hate us. Normal. 

And it is a blast to live with 4 again. These 2 elders from Ecuador and Chile are great and we are all learning so much from each other and trying to work hard and blow Castellon up. And now I feel like everyone is in summer...enjoy!!

Love,

Elder Farah

My new Address

C/Ronda Mijares 116 1, C

12002 Castellon

P.S. Can’t believe the heat won again...

Transfers!

Hello family and friends!!!

Well transfers are here and I am staying in Castellon and I am training again!! We will be going to Barcelona tonight and I will pick up my companion tomorrow. And we got into the new piso, cleaned it and I literally hung the last picture this morning so now I am all ready to go to receive the other 3 elders. One has the same time as me almost, and he is training as well. So we will have 2 new missionaries and 3 new missionaries for Castellon!! And my district grew to 8 with the new elders that are coming to Castellon, it has all kept me pretty busy.   We had problems with the hot water for a few days (of course, story of my mission) in our new piso so I called the dueno and lit a fire under him and told him to come fix it because he said everything was 100 percent ready, so of course I complained when I had a cold shower ha ha.  But they came and fixed it and now I am very happy in my nice huge piso, ready to do work again!!!

My miracle from the week was during church on Sunday. About 5 or 6 weeks ago we set a fecha with a man named Arturo. Then he just disappeared and we couldn’t get a hold of him at all and there was nothing we could do. Then he just walked into sacrament meeting on Sunday!! I was so shocked!!! So after I pounced on him and we set a visit with him for Thursday and he was telling me how sorry he was for what happened. He had left town and his phone is broken and he hasn’t bought a new one yet so he came to church to find us and to enjoy sacrament meeting. It was a huge miracle and I know that the Lord blesses us when we work hard and try our best, this truly is the work of the Lord and I know miracles happen every day.  So hopefully he will be getting baptized soon, but it is in the other Elders area but I don’t care as long as he goes down!! 

Splitting the area was fun as well.  It was a very spiritual experience.  I sat down with the map in front of me, listed all the strong members and where they were at, and thought about all the less actives, recent converts, and other people we are working with.  Then I knelt down to pray and asked for help to know what to do and how to split it the way the Lord wants, and how we will want the 4 of us to work. Then I got up, looked at the map, chalked some  lines where I wanted to spilt it, prayed again to know if it was right the way I had drawn it out, and then when I ended my prayer I looked at the map again and felt this huge comforting feeling come over me. I knew it was the Holy Ghost telling me that I did it the way the Lord wanted me to.  I didn’t expect this to be such a spiritual experience, but it was! And I know the Holy Ghost is real and I am so grateful for that gift we have in our life. 

Wish us luck out here with the new Elders and my new kid!!!!

Love,

Elder Farah

El Cristo Es!

Hello family and friends!

Well this week has been a crazy one.  We were able to find a new piso that is gorgeous and so now we are just waiting on the office to draw up a contract and then hopefully we can move in this week. We had to bargain with the guy a little, because he had other people looking at it. But in the end I told him to save it for us, and that the church pays everything up front, every last cent, and he did because of that I think ha ha :) 

This week we will be getting transfer calls and I am very interested to know what is going to happen.  I still have to split the area, and the other two elders are coming. And after this transfer I am done training Elder Perkis and we will probably split. So it will be crazy with what is happening! We are receiving 20 elders this transfer or something like that, so it is starting to grow a lot and new missionaries are white washing the area.  But personally I think I will stay here as district leader because I am the one who knows the area the best, and they will split me and Elder Perkis and I will train again. That is my guess, but nobody ever knows!! We will find out this Saturday. 

Other than that, we spent the week knocking a lot of doors and contacting. I have been talking to everybody!! But we haven’t seen much from it yet, ha ha. This week I am going to try and pass by as many members as I can and try to dig out some references.  We are just trying to do all the methods of finding, and I hope that this one works the best!! We have had a few days of knocking for 4 or 5 hours and contacting and that can be kind of rough sometimes!! My companion I think finally got the hang of things and is doing a lot better so we have had more fun and the time goes by faster. I just find it funny to talk to all of these people to see what they say, and some of the things they say are pretty funny, and some of them like my jokes, and others yell at me, ha ha but I just love talking with the people here.

But the highlight of my week had to be the stake conference that we had.  And in Spain, they are a huge deal.  We all went to Valencia, and had the meeting in a huge hotel and resort meeting house thing, it was incredibly nice. An Area seventy was there, Elder Reina, and he spoke.  President and Hermana Pace were there as well.  There were two huge buses to take us from Castellon to Valencia, and it was so fun to ride with the ward in those buses. I just went around talking with them and I just love these people so much, I don’t want to go because I love the ward!! The highlights of my days sometimes are eating with the members during medio dia. They love us and always have such good food; except for one...we ate fried pig skin that still had hair on it....gross!!!

But all is well; transfers will shake up the mission this week. I hope I don’t go. I love you all!!

Elder Farah