Megan Staying in Barcelona

Letter from Megan August 5th

Dear Family,

The news for transfers: I am staying in Barcelona with Hermana Floisand! We both let out a sigh of relief when we found out. I am going to really enjoy this transfer. Now that this transfer has begun so will my Sister Training Leader responsibilities. In our mission sister Training Leaders do the following:
We go out and work with the other assigned Hermanas for 24 hours just to help them with the work learn and love them, we set the standard with the Poutas (Baptisms, new investigators found, lessons taught with members present, etc.) We teach during Zone meetings and attend leadership meetings in which we are trained and participate in setting monthly goals and finding ways to lift the vision of the mission.

This week I got to teach about Charity and Obedience in our Zone meeting. I was exited and anxious to teach. When assigned the topic the Zone Leaders felt inspired that I should speak on the topic and I couldn't ignore the spiritual confirmation I felt as they assigned it to me. I really wanted to bring a good spirit, while praying about the topic I felt specifically inspired to be sure to ponder well beforehand what I would say. Hermana Floisand and I had an inspired Chat about the topic as we ran in the morning, the revelation just kept coming as we came in to stretch and we sat there stretching and chatting for a good 10 minutes longer than normal. When the time came I felt calm and I felt very blessed because that calmness just let me lay back and totally rely on the spirit. I was able to confidently present a message guided by the spirit. There was a strong spirit there in the meeting and I just sat down with that clean feeling I get after teaching a lesson. I don't mean to brag that I brought this incredible spirit into the meeting, but it was just such a spiritually edifying experience to me. I really felt the spirit as I taught to a degree I don't believe I have felt before. I felt the Lord confirming that he was not going to leave me alone in this new calling, that he would be there to lift me up, give me energy, and fill my mouth, what a comforting feeling. To share a little about what I taught, I explained a little about how the Pharisees and the Saducees had a list of many rules and in an effort to trick Christ they asked which was the most important. Without hesitation he used this as a teaching opportunity and replied "Love". This is where we are taught that we should love the Lord, ourself and others. We connected that with the commandments and the missionary handbook; these become a list of Do's and Dont's like the list of laws from the Pharisees and Sadducees...when we forget why we are doing them-Love. They were given to us out of love, and when we obey we should do it out of love. We talked about how that applies to missionary work when we obey and teach and do everything out of love that's when the missionary work becomes enjoyable. With love the commandments and missionary guidelines become liberating instead of suffocating.

On another note, we get to house 4 of the new sister missionaries coming in. Tonight we will take two of them to go on splits and the other two will go with 2 of the trainers coming in (one of them being Hermana Rhodes!). We are going to clean up the piso and bake so the hermana's coming in will feel at home. We are so excited to have them! I remember my first night was hard, and I really want them to have a great experience their first night. I am also excited because Hermana Pace (mission presidents wife) has put us in charge of the lunch for the new missionaries and their trainers tomorrow, so we will do last minute preparation and we will also get to eat with them. These are the benefits of being the Sister Missionaries closest to the office. We feel so blessed, plus Hermana Floisand loves serving, so it will be fun!

Funny Story for the week: to begin you know we give two kisses to say hello and goodbye, but only to girls. The other night we contacted a younger man. He looked like he was 20, he couldn't stop smiling for some reason. We talked about our English classes, when his bus came I shook his hand but gave him a stiff arm so he would know I would not kiss him. I was safe, but when he went over to my companion she tried to do the same and she even leaned back a little to make it clear, he blatently ignored her and gave her two fat kisses on both cheeks. Normally you just touch cheeks when you do it, but he went all in, he jumped onto the bus and laughed as he watched our reaction from the window. We waited for the bus to pull away before cracking up.