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

Break Through

Hola!
     I feel like finally this week we have got the work actually going. I have no idea why it took this long but I am feeling relieved. This week we found investigators, invited people to be baptized, got into inactive members' houses and everything else that sumarizes missionary work. We really are just getting it started though so I don't know if I have any cool stories or fun details.
     Okay heres one: Remember Santos? The alive guy? Welp story: Like Monday or so a member (Amalia) called and told us she wanted to visit him, with us. We thought it sounded like a good idea. Thursday we waited for her in front of Santos' house when she arrived with another member and her husband. We were surprised to see so many people and were worried that Santos didn't expect us all to just show up, but boy were we wrong! He had a whole array of snack items set out for us and we realized that this was not a missionary vist, it was a convention of sorts. With the leaders of the more experienced generation of the Sevilla 1st ward. The Old People club. Se llama Nuevas Miras. I do not know how we got an invite but my companion said she has never seen me in such a natural state. My natural habitat= old Spanish folk. They discussed their goals for the year, asked for donations (I excitedly pitched in a euro) and at one point we were holding hands in a circle singing Flamenco music. Then we did a group improv skit about old people complaining about young people. We took a group picture

and I read them one of my favorite new scriptures in which Paul calls the saints fellow citizens in the family of God. They almost shed literal tears. All while sipping on our Salmorejo. So so so cool.
     They want to take a group trip to Cádiz to visit all of the old folk there andI gave them some references. There going to make a book. I'll oder a copy, don´t worry. I don't know if I'll ever have an experience that tops that one so I'll probably just end with that.
     Last week we had trizone conference and I got to see Hna Evelo and Hna Read(from the mtc). And other friends. That was fun too I guess.
Welp have a good week, friends!
Love,
Hermana Hannah Ashby

Dead or Alive

Hey!
     We had a week of searching for people. It will continue.
     Best stroy I have: Last week we were in ward council and it lasted for like two hours and towards the end I completely lost my ability to pay attention and was in the back chatting with my comp when I heard the second counselor to the bishop say something like "I heard he was dead." So I decided I should probably listen closer-- some ward member had died afterall. The counsel commenced a discussion with how to deal with funerals and comforting the family and what-not when the Young Women's president piped in and said "He isn't dead, I saw him on the bus yesterday." Well you can imagine the commotion that started. They all argued for a good twenty minutes about whether or not this man was dead when the Bishop called for order and then turned to us and asked, "Hermanas, is Santos still alive?" Welp awkward. I may or may not have been wondering (and judging) how in the world the ward could not know if this was person alive or not and at the same time I might have thought it was kind of funny. (In an ironic sense of the word.) I was not aware that we had responsibilty over him. Apparently, he is a recent convert that was baptised a few months ago but stopped coming to church almost right after his baptism. Neither of us had ever heard of him. We were given the assignment to find out if he was dead or alive. Thus ended the ward counsel.
     Wednesday morning we dedictated to hunting him out. We went to the address that we had for him but it did not exist. So then we called some people and wandered around until we found his real address. finally we knocked the door, a man in a wheelchair answered and ordered us to come in. (We were keeping another Hna company while she was waiting for her companion to travel so there were three of us.) We tried talking to him but he wouldn´t let us. He just kept gong on about how he was in a wheel chair and couldn't walk and apologizing for how he didn't have any food for us. We were confused but finally we got him to admit that his name was indeed Santos! He is very much not dead. Case solved. And miracle he came to church on Sunday for the first time in a long time. Because the ward wanted us to see if he was dead, we visited him. Oh what a mess. God works in mysterious ways. Honestly kind of summarizes my week.
     Well. I love you all. I pray for you. God loves you.

Que tengan una buena semana!
Hermana Hannah Ashby

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: