Agua

To All Whom It May Concern:
     It is ridiculously dificult to send pictures here. I realize that have failed miserably and continue to fail in sending picutres, but know thaat I put in a good effort every Monday.

Sevilla 1

     Well, the feria was sweet. Everyone was dressed up in fancy flamenco dress and riding horses and dancing and eating paella. And drinkng and smoking, of course. Probably the most Spanish experience I have ever had. We even rode on a ferris wheel and got an amazing view of the whole city. It was really spectacular.
     So I have a cool story about real missionary work and stuff. I would have shared earlier, but it is kind of delicate and I wasn't really sure where this was going to lead.
     We have an investigator whose name is Pedro. The story goes that when Pedro was a baby he had a bunch of weird sicknesses like polio and stuff and at three months old he went into a coma-like thing. He stayed in said coma for eight years. He was in a vegetable state. Then nurses who didn't really know what they were doing (imagine medical care 60 years ago in europe, I shudder) put him in a bath and turned on the hot water. The water reached almost boiling temperatures and severely burned young Pedro. And Miracle of all miracles, Pedro screamed for the first time in years. Well fast forward Pedro is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life and is entirely unable to touch large quantities of water without going into epileptic fits, but otherwise has very little problems later on in life. He becomes a psychologist, gets married, has two sons: all is good. Until He runs in to the mormon missionaries - Now this is about 25 years ago. The missionaries continue to teach him off and on for years and he goes to church pretty regularly. Only problem, he can't get baptized without touching the water.
     So I get here and he is our only investigator and naturally his story fascinates me. But the more I teach him the more I kind of doubt that he has an actual testimony. Like, I knew he liked the church, but I didn't really think he knew it was true and kind of doubted that he really would get baptized if he could. So we decided to put him to an ultimatem: he gets baptized or we stop teaching him. I realize that probably sounds bad without all the details and the missionary aadvise of being bold and dropping investigators who don't progress. But we felt like it was time. We asked him if he believed that this was the true church. He said yes. If Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Yes. If he believed in miracles. Yes. If he would be baptised. And he agreed. April 25th. We were shocked. And then we terrifiedly promised him that if he would put is full effort in that God would open up a way for him to be baptized. Then for the next few weeks we very solemnly prepared Pedro to enter the waters of baptism.
     We re-taught him all the lessons, we talked him through the interview. He set up appointments to meet with doctors to find out what the worse that could happen would be . He assumed death, but he wanted to know for sure. Okay, insane I know. But honestly I was surprised it was going so far. So we decided to call President. He discussed it with us and advised us to proceed with caution, and to follow the doctors' advice. and to offer him a priesthood blessing. Wednesday we roped the Elders into coming to a cita with Pedro. They gave him a beautiful blessing and promised him that God would help him follow his commandments.            Thursday morning Pedro recieved the results from all the tests the doctors had run. Today, Monday he is going to start a 40 day (notice the symbolism) treatment program. He will go to a center with a pool every morning at 6am. He will recieve some heavy medications and be heavily montiored but they predict that he will indeed be able to touch water normally by the end of it all. He is puting in the effort and the solution will come. What a relief. So the new fecha is June 7th I think. What is the Sunday forty days from today? I think it's the 7th. Well, anyways. He could use your prayers.
     And there is my life. Keep you updated. Have a good week.

Love,
Hermana Hannah Ashby

Feria de abril de Sevilla

Hannah was not able to write this week (20 April 2015) because of this festival in the city she is in. Check out this website for a few more details, and enjoy these pictures of things she might be experiencing while doing the work of the Lord:

El Arie Sevillano

Dear Todos,
     Either my life has gotten very boring or my perspective has changed. I need to start looking for cool things that happen so that I can write exciting letters.
     We just spend a lot of time walking around trying to find investigators.

     This guy contacted us on the street a couple of weeks ago and wanted to meet with us, so we set up a time and place but he didn't show--so then we kind of forgot about him... awkward. But then he called us this week, apologized and set up another meeting. We met with him and the lesson actually went really great and he swore he would come to church, but then he didn't. We called him and found out he doesn't actually even live in our area. He lives in one of the random Pueblos that we don't actuallly work in. So off to the Elders he goes. It was a cool experience though. He'll probably get baptized or something.
     My companion has decided to define me as an old native elder. Soooo if you have ever wondered what kind of missionary I am... that's it. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
   

 It's transfer week but nothing is happening to us.
     I just read over this email and I sound depressed or something. I promise I am not. I am very happy... I just can't think of anything to say.
     Sevilla is really pretty. Especially as the weather warms up. Spain thrives in the summer. The people all open their doors and sit on the proches and sing and gossip. There are orange trees and daisies everywhere.

It smells almost overwhelmingly of orange trees and incense (a nice catholic touch). Oh, but don't forget the cigarette smoke. I've almost become immune to cigarette smoke. I don't usually smell it anymore. But I know that it is there :)

Well. Sorry for the uneventfulness. Being a missionary really is the best thing ever.
I love you!
Hermana Hannah Ashby

Semana Santa parte 2

Querida Familia,
     It was Semana Santa! For us that baisically just means we worked in a ghost town all week. Our area is kind of isolated from the rest of the city so everyone just took off and went to the city center for the celebrations and what not.
     We have a couple of peublos (little towns) that are also included in our area so we tried to focus a little bit more on those this week since no one was in Pino Montano (the section of Sevilla that we have). We did some fun exploring and searching for the menos activos that have probably never been visited. These pueblos are super pretty. They look like what I pictured Spain would look like before I actually came here. White painted villages.
     We met some people that have a lot of potential also. Everyone in the streets gave us funny looks. They are obviously not used to foreigners or missionaries visiting. So that meeant they were really curious when we talked to them. It was kind of cool. Spaniards are naturally very open and talkitve people when not suspiciouly trying to shut down all attempts of talking about "other" religions. I quite enjoyed myself. But it does make things kind of complicated for the future because getting the pueblo people to the city for church is not an easy task so we are still going to do most of our work in Pino Montano. Una lastima.
     And don´t forget! It was Conference weekend! Best weekend of the year! This time I got to see all sessions in English. They set up a little english room for all us English speakers. We even got permission to stay up and watch half of the Sunday afternoon session. We got to see up to President Uchtdorf do his announcement in German before we had to take off. It was very difficult to leave.
     Easter is beuatiful. Christ lives.

That was my week. I love you all!
Hermana Hannah Ashby