Marissa arrives in Barcelona!

New Elders, President Hinkley and Sister Hinkley, Marissa

New Companion, Marissa and the Hinkleys

Hermana Walker arrives in Barcelona!

Dear Families of our new missionaries,

     We are pleased to inform you that your daughter has safely arrived in the Spain Barcelona Mission.  Hermana Hinckley and I, along with the two assistants, met her at the airport.  The group of missionaries we received is wonderful young men and women, ready to go to work. Their enthusiasm reflects their love for the Savior and we are grateful for the privilege of guiding them along as they serve the Lord.

     Every area in the Spain Barcelona Mission is unique and beautiful, rich in history and tradition.  More importantly, each city is full of children of our Heavenly Father, waiting to hear the glad news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

     Thank you for the trust you have put in us to shepherd your daughter.  Please know that we feel a great responsibility to guide and protect “our” missionaries.  We love your sons and daughters as if they were our own.  With the Lord’s help, we intend to make their mission experience in Barcelona the most memorable time of their lives.

Sincerely,

President and Hermana Hinckley

Cameron September 26, 2011

Dear family,

The week was brutal. We ran around after people, but of course it is extremely difficult to describe our running around in an email. Investigators come and go so quickly. We are given the opportunity to only describe the more special moments.

We met a woman named Célia this week. She was a referral from a member. During the time of the flood, she was helped by the church. She expressed with great sincerity the love she has for the church. What is stopping her from being baptized? She has never been to a church meeting nor read the book of mormon. We will change that. We explained the restoration of the gospel to her and she accepted to read and pray to know if the message is true. We will accompany her this week. 

Democrecina is a elderly woman we found last week and she went to church. She is 92 and still walks like any other person. She loved the church and accepts our visits very openly. We also are trying to help her grandson. We found him first and he invited us to come to his house. Democrecina was BAPTIZED yesterday. She accepted readily. We didn't even have to go pick her up. She was ready with a towel in hand. I think this goes down as the oldest person we have helped to be baptized.

Fátima, our baptism three weeks ago, is a little discouraged. She fell back into her old habits of smoking and drinking coffee. We are trying to help her, but I really believe it just comes right down to her personal desire. She still goes to church which is the bonus. Her daughter takes her every week. 

Maykom, baptism from two weeks ago already received the Priesthood at Stake conference last week. He is going strong. He is starting to invite his friends. We will be working with him a lot. 

Vanuza. She went to church yesterday. She has quite the past. She had a calling in her old church, but she left the church due to corruption. She had a very strong testimony of her church, but then it was sold. That really shook the faith she had. We informed her that our church isn't man's church. Our church will never be sold, nor does anyone in the church work for money. She was rather impressed with the church. I pray that she might be baptized this Saturday after conference. 

A highlight of the week was our district meeting. Because of the help President gave to us district leaders, the meeting went very well. We evaluated our progress, our results and helped each other with investigator´s problems. It felt more like we were all on the same team (which we are) instead of comparing our results and progress. Much more spiritual. Our president really is inspired.

Have a wonderful week. Remember that the church is true. Everyone needs to pray that Rio be blessed with a temple announced at conference!

Com amor,

Elder Walker

Marissa at the Madrid MTC

¡ESPAÑA!   oh españa.  ¡Me gusta España! 

 

Hombre, we´ve already been here 3 days and it feels like home.  The flight went by fast!  I finally caught up on sleep.  The first night President Earl said we wouldn´t remember a thing he told us.  He was right haha.  I was so tired and loopy to the point that my eyes kept going cross-eyed no joke.  So we were able to go to bed early at 7pm.  While the other Hermana´s slept 12 hours I woke up at 2:15 am and couldn´t fall back asleep worth the life of me until 5am so I just wrote in my journal and read my scriptures.  The next night I was out and slept like a baby.  So I feel great now! 

 

Madrid rocks!  The president is so relaxed on everything we do here and our schedules. We kind of make our own schedules and everything is so flexible since our time here is limited.  It´s like a little missionary vacation here.  The food is amazing.  We´ve done 2 temple sessions already.  This is by far THE most gorgeous Celestial room I´ve EVER seen.  The artwork and chandeler´s are to die for.  I did both sessions in Español and for the most part understood everything.  It was a really neat experience. 

 

A bunch of missionaries came in yesterday so it went from 10 missionaries here to like 30 missionaries.  My companion for a day from Italy is going to France and spoke very little English and no Español ha.  So we tried communicating by what little English she new, a little American and Italian sign language mixed with pictionary.  Very interesting combo.  She has to ¨wash her teeth¨ after every meal.  haha.  There are people from all over Europe, Romania, France, Italy, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, America and Portugal.  Crazy, you can imagine how cool temple session was having it in over 5 different languages and compromising for Spanish here and there.  I was very touched my the spirit in my areas and experiences there.  What a blessing and opportunity this has been.  You won´t find a greater place on this earth!  Lot´s of Portugeese here Cam.  A nice lady told me how pretty I was in the temple in Porugeese from Portugal and I understood her a little.  Lot´s of Portugeese here Cammy Poo. 

 

Then we were able to go down town on the metro to see all the fun sights.  Lot´s of cool pictures and bizarre things to see.  King of Spain´s house, opera house, cathedrals everywhere.  It was cool we actually did a lot of missionary work everwhere esp. in the cathedral.  I was handing out pass along cards with the temple on it everywhere and telling others to come see our catherdral or temple so to speak.  It worked!  Gave them the address then enjoyed just talking to people everywhere I went to get the Español going.  I know more than I thought.  Was stopped by a crazy guy as I put a pass along card in his violin case.  That was bad and I couldn´t understand how bad it was because I don´t quite get every word yet so I just smiled and waved as I walked away because I could tell it wasn´t nice haha.  But this has been so much fun I´ll try and send pictures.

 

I know the church is true!  I know Joseph Smith restored this church to the earth, but most importantly, my Savior lives!  I love him.  I love sharing the truth.  Hope you have taken things off your load mom and dad and are enjoying life.  Don´t worry about your missionaries because God´s protecting them.  I pray for you all every night and love you very much.  I have never felt closer to my Savior then ever before and finally satisfied with where I´m at in life.  Love you, hope you have a good week!

 

Hermana Walker

D&C 121:9

Marissa September 20, 2011 from the Madrid MTC

Hola Familia y amigos

 

Well here I am in España!  made it safe!   This country is beautiful.  How awesome it was to get on that plane with my fellow Spaniards.  I love the people already can´t even explain how they somehow just fit my `personality.  So many missionary opportunities to share.  ¨I placed my first El Libro de Mormón!´´  which is the book of mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ.  I was also able to give a couple of pamphlets away and pass along cards.  How wonderful it was to look out of the plane and see Portugal after a long plane ride over the Atlantic.  I sat next to an elder going to Barcelona as well.  it was a blast! 

 

So excited so many good things to tell but unfortunately I have to keep it short.  All the elders played a guessing game where we would all be reassigned to because we had no word of visas and were supposed to leave in 4 days. I was a grandma over at the provo mtc, got to host the new missionaries then received word of my visa this just last Thursday.  We got to go to the consolate of spain´s house! so beautiful with all the spaniard art work everywhere!  Elder Ballard spoke to us at devotional which was a suprise and my hermana, mi compañera, received word she will not be going to españa with the rest of us because of visa problems.  She was reassigned to the salt lake city mission, which is where she is from.  She wasn´t at all thrilled, but I reminded her of the blessings that come from faith and a good attitude.  She never complained again after that. 

 

It was hard saying goodbye to the elders, but it was time to move on to bigger and better things.  I felt like I didn´t get much studying done my last week because I was so busy with packing, visa paperwork, signing everyone´s books, taking pictures, going away meetings, devos, then finally saying goodbye!  I love it here!   i get to be here a week then I´ll take a train to Barcelona on Tuesday.  the temple is gorgeous, the weather is fantastic, and the people are beautiful!  I´m a little loopy from no sleep for 24 hours but president won´t let us sleep until tonight because that´s what´s best!

 

Well I´ll talk to you on Thursday again, that´s prep day.  I love you all, don´t worry about me.  I´m doing more than great!  Mom and Dad take it easy on yourselves.  I´m the last thing you need to worry about.  Love you all, the church is true.  Be happy and breath you crazy Walkers!! 

 

Bueno Suerte!

-Hermana Walker

 

Cameron Sept. 20, 2011

It was quite an exciting week. 

We worked really hard to get a lot of people at church this week. It was stake conference. The conference was divided into two sessions due to distance. The session in our city was at 4:00. We found several people who wanted to go to church and said they would. But it's always the people you least expect who end up going. Maykon got the Melchizedek priesthood on Sunday. That was really quick! Well, when bishop loves the converts, it goes really quickly. 

We are working this week with a man called Elias. He is one of those people that all the missionaries work with. His wife is a member and even served a mission. To this day, no one has baptized him. We show up there to help. We don't teach anything because he's probably already heard everything. We just sit and talk. Turns out, he wants to be baptized and has a testimony. His problem is that he drinks and smokes. If we could just get rid of those two, he would be easy water. But these are the two giants that every missionary fears. I've never had too much success with people with addictions. We'll see.

Monday, I didn't write because there was a leadership training in Rio. It was just for the district leaders. Everything that was said was perfect. I was really quite unsure as to what my responsibilities were as a district leader and how president wants us to lead our districts. Everything was laid out very plainly. I'm sure the mission will be much more powerful now.

I have seen the hand of the Lord in everything. Sunday and Monday were very interesting. While waiting for the other elders to get to our city, we got a phone call that they missed the bus. This means that we would have to go there and meet them, and that I would get in Rio really late. But it just so happened that because of this we had the chance to bless another's life. First, we left the conference a bit early to go home and grab our stuff. On the way we ran into some members that weren't at church. They were coming back from the hospital. They gave us a ride (helped us a lot) and we gave her a blessing. Second. Due to the fact that we got late in Rio, we ran into two lost elders in the bus station that were going to the same house that we were. Third. Because we got back so late, we ended up staying the night at a different house. Elder Alvorado (Kyle) was there. I got to say goodbye. We were happy to see each other. He said something that I don't think I will ever forget. He said, "You know how being a missionary we always want to do things that aren't allowed. You think, "man I really want to listen to some good music right now." Well, when I found out I was going home, I didn't want any of that. I just wanted my mission back." Yes, he went home yesterday due to his medical condition. Fourth. We happened to be on the right bus at the right time going to the training because we ran into more lost elders who didn't know how to get to the chapel. Fifth, on the way to the chapel, right when I got off the bus, I ran into Gluacio. Glaucio is the father of the family Elder Nelson and I baptized on my very first month of the mission. Unfortunately he isn't active, but it couldn't have been pure coincidence that I ran into him. It all started when the other elders missed that bus coming to my city. Had they made it, none of this would have happened.

The church is true. Love you all

Com amor,

Elder Walker