Baptisms All Over The World

Hello mi familia,

No time to waste: this weeks cuenta is that we have three baptismal fechas-

Carla

from Nicaragua

Mother of 3 (her kids are in her pais)

Lives with our recent convert Carmen and another super strong member.

Told us she wants to get baptized, but we think she´s a little scared of the commitment.

She reads everything we give her, talks, chapters in the Book of Mormon, folletos, etc.

Candida

from Dominican Republic

Mother of 5, but only 2 live with her, her 18 year old slightly rebellious son Randy, and her 8 year old super cute son Christopher.

She has been prepared.  She is super humble and recognizes that she needs her Heavenly Father in her life.

Hard family life.  Husband left her for someone else.

Lived in the United States for several years... never really learned English that well.

Anastasia

from Russia

Only child. Her parents live in the Ukraine.

She´s here in Spain all alone and really likes being in the chapel with everyone.  She´s been rather lonely.  We met her because a Ukrainian man told her about our English classes.

Told us she was raised a Christian and likes to learn about the gospel and knows how important it is.

I love these women.  We have the greatest lessons with them.  I wish you could all know them too.

We went to visit with a less active family last night after church and when they opened the door the little boy was so excited and gave hna. Walters a hug.  The other little boy tried to give me this game he said he found in the street.  It was a board game and I gave it back to his grandma when he wasn´t looking.  I love teaching kids.  Sometimes they don´t really listen... not that that´s news to anyone.

Que vergüenza.  That video of us singing in the kitchen of the mission home made the blog?  Vaya.  I hate hearing myself on videos. I hope I wasn´t audible.

Thanks for the great letters Alyn and Erin.  I love to hear about your lives and your worries and your kids and your houses.  I wish I could help you.

Hey Cody, I taught the Elders in my district how to do shake-face pictures on the bus ride back from Barcelona.  We all got headaches.

The Conference was great.  President shared a miracle story about Hna. Konopinski and I started crying.  I shared my testimony and I cried again.  I don´t want to end my mission, but life must go on.

I love you all so much.  I´m sorry for all of the unanswered questions... we´ll talk later.  Make sure you all keep feeding yourselves spiritually.  Scriptures, thoughtful prayers, fulfilling your callings in church.  It´s worth it.

Hna. Diehl

Concilio

Mi Querida Familia,

This last week Hna. Walters and I went to the Mission Council meeting at the mission home in Barcelona.  When we became companions we joked that we were the ¨Hermana Zone Leaders¨ because we are both kind of old in the mission... actually we are 2 of the oldest 3 hermanas in the mission (time-in-mission-wise, not age-wise).  It was great to get that extra instruction from our mission president.  I just feel like I´ve always been so far away that I have never really been able to spend much time around the Hinckleys, but Hna. Walters and I were invited to stay in their house and we got up early (luckily since mom called me about my Father´s day call stuff at 6:50 in the morning... we don´t get up until 7:30 in this mission. It´s Spanish culture!) and we helped (or actually just ending up watching the ayudantes) make breakfast.  Hermana Hinckley wouldn´t let us do too much because it´s ayudante tradition to make the pancakes for concilio.

We have a woman that we´re teaching that satan does not want to get baptized.  Her name is Carla, and every time we have a cita with her it´s really great- but then we´re not able to see her for one reason or another for like a week or more.  We´re doing our best though and I know Heavenly Father will help her and us with the things that we lack.

I thought we would be going to Barcelona this morning to spend the day there and then have our Zone conference tomorrow- but we´re not leaving Zaragoza until 6:30 this evening.  Hopefully we´ll get to see a couple of nice sights in this city that I still haven´t visited.  I´ve kind of given up on letter writing- it´s not my favorite preparation day activity and my companion wants a few letter writing hours today... Maybe I´ll make myself do it because I still have some I haven´t responded to.

I love you all- I´m excited to hear more about the babies when they come (yeah!  twins!)  Send me pictures of Erin´s volleyball belly!

Love,

Hna. Diehl

Last Transfer? Oh no...

Dear Familia,

Uh... I´m in denial.  I don´t feel like an old missionary- so I´ve decided that it´s NOT my last transfer.  I´m staying in Zaragoza with Hermana Walters.  There were several missionaries that were supposed to arrive to our mission, but are serving in the states waiting for visas, so there were very few changes this transfers.  The only change with the Hermanas is that a new native Spanish hermana (who obviously would not have visa problems) is going to be Hna. Church´s companion since hermana Konopinski went home.  I also think that there were very few changes because on the 1st of July the Bilbao mission is dissolved and a chunk of it comes to our mission, and the Elche stake goes from our mission to the Malaga mission.

Well, this week went quickly and I can hardly even remember it right now.  Ummm... I think the highlight would have to be... a Russian woman named Anastasia who is in our English class showed up on her own to church on Sunday.  We invited the whole class to come and she came!  She was born in Siberia actually, but lived a long time in Moscow.  She´s great, so now we are going to start teaching her this week.  She speaks quite a bit of English and Spanish, and there is a man in our branch who is from the Ukraine, so he speaks Russian.  It´s perfect.

Well familia- this Sunday will be Father´s Day, so I am going to call home.  The only trouble is the time... we have afternoon church and then we might be leaving to go to Barcelona Sunday evening (I haven´t found out yet), so I´m going to call at about 1:30pm Spain time... I´m not sure what the time difference is right now to Arizona... or California.  It might be kind of early... sorry.  But I´ll plan on calling at that time to the land line in Cornville.  If there´s another phone you would prefer that I call- you´ll have to call me and let me know (our cell phone is 637-460-844, and I think the country code for Spain is 34...), or you could call the mission office, if that´s easier, and have them tell me.  If I don´t hear anything, I´ll call the house number.

I love you all.  I´m going to try Hermana Grant´s trick so you can actually see a picture this week.

Hermana Diehl

p.s. man I hope the pictures finally worked.

Hot

Querida Familia,

I sent the picture in its own email this week, hoping that it would work.  (thanks for the advice on ways to change the file format hna. Grant!)  One night waiting for a bus to come we saw this view of the Basilica: El Pilar.  It´s the most famous thing in this city, and quite pretty.

I loved all of the birthday blogs and pictures.  I have the most guapo neices and nephews.  I was hoping to see some more pictures of Trac...

It´s been getting hot here and I come home at night sticky and dirty from the day.  It´s okay though- I survived last summer too.  I just walk a lot in the shade and drink a lot of water.  I already have strange tan lines from my shoes, skirt, shirts.

We had a really good visit with a woman named Maria Elena.  She is evangelica and doesn´t want to get baptized again.  We took a member with us and did an activity to explain how during the apostasy and without a prophet to guide us the true church was lost, only to be found again through a restoration.  She understood what we were teaching and finally came to church.  Still don´t know if she wants to get baptized and join our church (she´s quite active in her church), but she believes that the Book of Mormon is true so we are still helping her to get that confirmation from our Heavenly Father and to recognize the spirit.  She never understood before that God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost are 3 separate beings- I guess that church teaches that they are just one- and so we read with her when Christ was baptized and all three of them were manifested at the same time.  She told us that had always confused her and she was glad to understand it better.  I think she´s just scared to change.

I´m here in Zaragoza with Hermana Walters.  Hna. Konopinski had to go to Barcelona for her last 2 weeks because there was an hna. with health problems who had to go home.  We´re having fun.  Working hard.  I´m glad I still have some time left to be a full-time missionary!

Love you all-

Hermana Diehl

el Pilar

I put the picture in the blog header above, for your viewing pleasure.

Bebe! y Cerezas!

Hey Familia,

I was a bit frustrated last week with the trouble trying to attach pictures.  Sorry nothing has come through lately.  I think it´s because my new camera has a lot of megapixels.  I´ll just try sending one picture at a time... maybe.  I might just give up.

We had a really good cita this week with a woman named Carla.  She is Carmen´s friend and we were teaching her about the restauration of the gospel and we were mentioning how after Christ died there was an apostasy in the world and there were many churches that formed.  She said, ¨That´s what I´d like to know!  How do I know which of all the churches is the right one?¨ It was beautiful.  She has a baptismal goal for the 12th of June.

I was so excited to hear that little Trac was born.  I laughed when I heard his name because mom had told me that Cai wanted to name his little brother Train Track.  He´s cute.  Give him a kiss from me and tell the chillens I´ll see ´em in a bit.  I was glad to hear that he and Mindy are healthy and okay.

We changed our preparation day because Abel (the man who sent the web cam information) and his wife Maria Jesus took us to this pueblo where I was able to buy some Spanish shoes (don´t worry, I didn´t buy heels- I walk like an idiot in heels) and we bought some cherries that were picked this morning and are so pretty and tasty.  They also took us out to eat at an uruguayan restaurant.  They are the best.  I found out that they believe that any chuch could have a prophet or could be true because God doesn´t pick favorites.  Years and years knowing missionaries and they still have this doubt.  I´m praying to know what I could do to help them.

I love you all.  Thanks for the letter Kori and John.  I got it last week.  Tanner is getting big and he and Spencer look so cute.

Love,

Hermana Diehl