Mapas

Mi Queridisma Familia,
     Once upon a time my companion got Bronchitis and we spent a ridiculous amount of time in the piso waiting for her antibiotics to kick in. I have never felt more restless in my life. I was however able to super organize the Area Book. The missionaries before me did not own a map of our area so we went on a hunt searching for a good one and I spent the week in piso matching up peoples' addresses and everything to the map. Not fun, but necessary. Now our work is going to be a lot easier. My companion has officially been healed so we have been freed from the green cube we call our piso. It feels nice to breathe.
     And Hermana Garcia really is great. We've made fast friends. I'm very, very hopeful for the rest of this transfer.
     Candela was baptised. The service went very beautifully. The spirit was strong, and all of her classmates and nonmmber family members were there and enjoyed it.
     Sevilla is beautiful. Just a pretty city; lots of ancient things everywhere. The people are very recpetive--I just feel very blessed to be here.
     I can't think of really anything else that has happened... so talk to y'all next week!

Hermana Ashby

PS Here are some pictures that Antoni and Amaila sent to me:

Sevilla

Hola!
     Here I am. Chillin' in Seville. No big deal.
     Transfer weeks are the weirdest because baisically your world changes within just a few days. Leaving Cádiz was just so sad. I miss it. Just a gorgeous little beach town. Sigh.
     But Sevilla is honestly awesome. It is giant. At least compared to Cádiz and Peurtollano. I'm trying to remember how Granada was. Probably a similiar size but there were less missionaries therefore we covered a bigger area so it seemed a whole smaller. There are a ton of missionaries here and I am not used to it. And two wards. The ward here is probably twice the size as the ward in Cádiz was. And it is super stable. And there are so many interesting people. It is very diverse. A woman from Australia made us binofy (honestly no idea how to spell that) pie. There are multiple families from the Philippines. The Bishop's family is the cutest thing ever. Ooo! Almost forgot to mention, we are going to have a baptism this weekend. Like sort of. She is nine. Her mom is a member but she is super hippie (complete with dred locks) and she decided that primary didn't teach her daughter enough and she wanted her to take all of the missionary discussions before she got baptized. It has taken over a year now but finally we have finished and the baptism will be on Friday (the 13th). And it now counts as a convert baptism. So no complaints. A very, very cute little girl named Candela. I am excited. We are brainstorming ideas on how to make a nine year old baptism really meaningful for her. We will probably buy here a journal and write our testimonies in it. We made her a sticker calender so that she can mark when she reads in The Book of Mormon and prays. It's fun.
     Welp, That's all folks.

Talk to you next week!
Hermana Ashby

Gofres!

Mis Seres Queridos,
     I don't even know what happened this week. Not much I guess. We had a gofre (waffle) party on Thursday. The señor couple that's on the military base near by made them for us because most of our district is going to be changing this transfer. It was awesome. I can't even remember the last time I've had a good gofre.
     Saturday we recieved transfer calls! I am headed to Sevilla! (aka Seville in English) Sevilla Ward 1. Yes, there is more than one ward there. Weird, right? My new companion will be Hna Garcia. I've met her once. She is very sweet. The last name sounds Spanish but she was def American when I talked to her. I don't know what that's about, I'll figure it out. I am sad to be leaving Cádiz though. It's a good place. Hna Smith is coming to take my place here. She's young in the mission but I´ve heard a lot of good things about her so I am excited for hna Evelo. Even though it's sad to leave her. Hna Evelo is the best.
     Also, Saturday night the Elders had a baptism. She is a little old lady. It was super precious. She walked in when hna Evelo and I were filling the font and she was super worried that she would drown or the water would be cold so we talked her through it all and let her feel and choose the water temperatura. Super adorable.
     Antoni came to church yesterday even though we told him he didn't have to if he didn't feel up to it. He is super dedicated. They bought all kinds of coffee substitutes and are testing them all out. Amalia is still afriad. She told us this week that it all just scared her so much because when she me with us she really just expected us to have a very basic knowledge of the Bible with an emphaisis on families based on what she had heard before. But instead we know everything that she has studied and discovered on her own and more and that freaks her out. She has a hard time accepting that there really is one true group out there. It's kind of frustrating for us because she literally has no problem with any doctrine at all. I think she is just wondering if we are a trick coming from Satan or actually from God. Time will tell?
And that's all for this week. I love you all.
Hermana Ashby

Tarshish

Buenos Días,
     So I just found something out. It's game changer. Cádiz is Tarshish in the Bible. Look it up, it is in the Bible Dictionary, but specifically you should look up Isaiah 66:19. It says that the gospel will be preached to the gentiles in Tarshish in the last days. I am fulfilling prophecy. No big deal. Also, it is the city that Jonah tried to escape to before a whale ate him. Also, not a big deal. Lies! It's a really big deal.
     Hey, so update on the investigators Amalia and Toni. They've tried to drop us a few times since I mentioned them last but we decided to ignore that unless they told us that we weren't welcome to come back. They were just afraid of committment. So Friday we were suppposed to meet with them and then Toni calls right before and tells us that Amalia's having a bad day so maybe we could come Tuesday and that'd be better. I told him "no, we´ll just call on Saturday and see how she is." And then we decided to go and leave a post-it note on their door with a nice uplifting scripture also saying that we hope she feels better soon. Then at 3 in the morning we get a text from Amalia that they got our note coming home from the hospital. Toni had a heart attack a couple of months ago and had to get open heart surgery and was in recovery but on Friday he was having chest pains again. He told us it was Amalia because he didn't want us to worry. Also, Saturday morning we called very concerned, obviously, and they told us that at the hospital they didn't have any room to admit him so he was to come back on Sunday (Spanish medical care), Also, the doctor told him to cut anything stressful out of his life which they decided was us. But he still told us that we could come over whenever we wanted.
      We offered the Elders to give him a blessing, he accepted and then we made cookies, met with the Elders and the Ward Mission Leader, and went to their house to give him a blessing. They reacted very well and we told them to call us on Sunday when they knew what was going on.
     Sunday afternoon they called from home telling us they had just gottten back. He had little veins around his heart that were destoying themselves-I don't know how to phrase that in English. It's not anything big I guess. But here comes the good part! He told us that he had just told his wife that he had decided to enter. I'm assuming that means to get baptized. He said he is throughroughly convinced that our doctrine is true, and even more, that we have shown him that our doctrine is true through our example and how we weren't willing to leave them. My heart melted. They are the best. We told them to rest and we would call today. We will see how things go from here.
     And that is all the exciting stuff that has happened this week.

I hope you all have a good week!
Hermana Hannah Ashby

Carnaval

Howdy!
     So nothing really happened this week. Also, I awkwardly wasted a lot of email time. Sorry.
     Umm, we helped a member learn English beefore a test. It is super weird to teach English. I don't know English.
      It was Carnaval. I still don't know what Carnaval is. It was super crowded for a few hours in our party of a city but then everyone migrated so it didn't really effect anything. Okay, I really have to go.

I love you all!
Hermana Hannah Ashby

Ropa Vieja (It means old clothes) This is a Cadiz classic!

Baptismal dates

This couple was celebrating their 35th anniversary and invited us to lunch

Leones

Hey!
     So this was a really weird emailing week. I'm trying to get a lot of pictures to you so this email is going to be very brief.
     Last Monday I got my haircut! Woohoo. Sort of a scary experience getting your hair cut in spanish. I was only able to tell her very generally what I wanted, but it turned out fine and is easier to mange now. it's really not all that different.
     We had zone meeting on Friday. That was fun. They fed us hot dogs and mac and cheese. A delicacy.
Oooh! A member fed us sea snail things. mmm. Pictures will be included.
     Played soccer on saturday and then aslo today. I am def a pro now. Mas o menos.
Okay now for the pics.
Love you all!
Hermana Hannah Ashby

Paintballing

One year pizza

Gibralter

Me and Hermana Watson

Tranky papers. Can you feel the terror?

Carnaval

The super cool futbol pitch we played on

Diamante

Hola!
     It has been a weird week. I am ready to get back into the normal missionary life now.
     I caught the flu. I'm assuming. Or whatever gripe tanslates into. I've been sick. That was last Monday and Tuesday. I had a fever of 102 so we stayed in Monday night. Then we went to district meeting Tuesday morning which was probably stupid because then I felt way worse. So then we only left the piso on Tuesday evening to teach one lesson with Amalia and Toni.
     Wednesday was Dia de Diamante. Super cool. I went to San Fernando in the morning to work with Hna Watson. She is fresh from the MTC this week but contacts like a maquina. It was a lot of fun. Then I spent the afternoon in my own area with my comp and we baisically talked to all of Cadiz. I really enjoyed it actually. Still didn't feel super great, but that's okay.
     Then Thursday Hna Evelo had to go to Malaga to do residency stuff so I was shipped to Sevilla again to chill with Hna Hurtado. She is baisically my new best friend. (Other than Hna Evelo and like all my other best friends of course.) But Hna Hurtado is cool. So then Friday we came home. We awkwardly missed the train coming home and had to catch the next train which didn't get us home until super late. Saturday morning we had to do weekly planning, so baisically the only real work time we got in was Saturday night. It was a fun week I guess, but I don't think I would want every week to be like that....
     And that was the week! I'm super sorry about the whole going forever without pictures thing. I'll get those to you next week!

I love you!
Hermana Hannah Ashby

PS
I can't send you pictures but I can send you our mission hymn*. I have been singing this at least twice a week for the past year. The piano one is also cool because it is a medly of our mission hymn and Called to Serve.

*In order to post the song to the blog, I made a video with the song and some of the photos Hannah has sent home. Enjoy! --Stephanie