11 months and a new transfer (17 August 15)

I don't know how it's already Monday again, or how it's already a new transfer or how it's been ELEVEN MONTHS since i entered the mission! I blink and it's already Monday again, and here I am saying that I've completed another transfer and that I've completed another month. I feel like I say this every other week! Time is a crazy thing!! 

Well here's the good news, I'm staying here in Jerez for this next transfer!:) and hermana Hurtado is staying here as well. We are both super excited! We both got super nervous before our transfer calls on Saturday, because we both really wanted to stay together in Jerez, and we have no idea how our new president does transfers! But when we got the call, it was a huge relief:) there aren't too many changes in our zone so we are happy! 

It's been another great week here! We were able to teach a lot of lessons, and we have some great investigators that are progressing! We are most excited about our investigator Jose Eduardo. He's the boyfriend of our recent convert, and we recently started teaching him a couple weeks ago. He didn't seem really into it the first lesson, but as we've met him he has opened up a lot and has become more interested in learning! He has a fecha for the 29th of August, and he's pretty excited cuz he says he wants to get baptized at the beach haha:) but Saturday, we had a really great lesson with him, and he brought his sister to listen to us as well! After all of our lessons with him, he would go home and explain it all to his her. One of my favorite things is when investigators bring friends or family, because most of the time they end up teaching and testifying to them of the things they've learned. A lot of the times they haven't learned everything, but as they teach what they know or testify, they come to know that they really are gaining a testimony of what we are teaching. Ahh I love it! 

There was a lot that happened this week! But here are just some of the highlights. From Tuesday to Wednesday we did intercambios with the Cádiz Hermanas, and hermana Nelson came here to Jerez with me. I love intercambios! They are always fun and I get to learn a lot, and there's always cool miracles from it:) we got two new inv. that day. Wednesday night we went to a birthday party for one of our Bolivian investigators! Like half of our investigators and recent converts were there haha. We got some great Bolivian food! On Friday, the elders had two baptisms, which were so great! Both of them were so happy! 

We taught a lesson to Jose Eduardo with his sister in a park, and the benches weren't big enough, but there was this cool tree with big branches close to the ground, so we just sat on that and taught a lesson on a tree! Haha 

This week I was studying about patience (something I need more of) and read in a really good talk by Neal a maxwell. These are some parts that I really liked from it.

Patience is tied very closely to faith in
our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His. Either way we are questioning the reality of God’s omniscience as if, as some seem to believe, God were on some sort of postdoctoral fellowship and were not quite in charge of everything...

 Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. Put another way, too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising. So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we will not be. 

Patience means that we can endure well our trials sigh faith and hope, and that we accept the Lords timing as He gives us these promised blessings. I know it's something I need so that I can overcome my trials and weaknesses that I have. Patiently I am trying to develop patience! Even though a lot of the time we think "I want patience and I want it now!" It doesn't work that way;) 

That's all for this week. Thanks for everything!! Love you all!!

Les quiero y les echo de menos! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Knowles