Two months completed!!

Okay. We had the COOLEST PDAY this last week! We went to this ancient town that’s set on this gorge that is from before Christ. It’s soooo pretty! Pictures can’t even do it justice. My whole district took a two hour train (where we played lots of phase 10) and got to Ronda. We hiked down to the bottom of the gorge. Then we went to this cool torture museum (the elders loved that) and then we went to this old palace that had these mines that went into the walls of the gorge that were from this Muslim kind in the 14th century. It’s so cool! We were sure that there was a hidden city in the walls of the gorge. And then we found those mines and realized we were probably right! haha it was the prettiest place I had ever been too. 

So, now about missionary work.. 

Our Indian investigator Colgit invited us over for some traditional Indian food. So we had curry chicken, which I love, and this other bread. It was so good! It was a funny eating cita though because well.. she doesn’t speak English or Spanish. But she has a friend who does speak English, and he was there for another one of our lessons which was great! So I’m hoping that will help us to progress with her. 

There are these three kids that we call the paraguayos where two of them are less active and the other boy wants to get baptized but his mom won’t let him yet. We see that almost every day. The oldest is 18 and his name is Ernesto, and up until this last week he has just been a punk and not been interested in anything. But we invited him to come play futbal with all of us one day, and afterwards he said he wants to start coming out with the missionaries again!! He has come with us to a couple lessons now and has been reading the things in Preach My Gospel that we ask him to prepare! It’s so cool to see that change in him! And now he talks about serving a mission himself... miracles! 

Salvador (who has a date for baptism) tried to fetching drop us this week! I think he is having a hard time giving up marijuana and tobacco. But he wanted to go to the evangelic church again. So we told him to go check it out, and see the difference that he feels. He says he feels the spirit with us, so I know that when he goes there he won’t feel the same spirit that our gospel has. So he is going to it tomorrow, and will let us know his answer on Wednesday. We are praying for him! 

It was a great week! Love you all

Hermana Knowles

New photos

Fun on some p-days, with distric, and with a family who let me teach them.

Well, Jesus Loves You

Another great week in Fuengirola!!

So I’ll start out with a funny story. We were knocking on our investigators door when this man from Africa saw us and started talking to us (I’m pretty sure he was high). He tried to give us kisses on the cheeks but we said we couldn’t because we were missionaries. But we said we would love to meet with him and his wife another time. And then he said that he loved us, and that he didn’t love his wife, but that he loved us. Hahaha and Sis Folsom said "Well, Jesus loves you." and it’s been our joke ever since.

Ahh there is so much that happens everyday! So everyday we get up at 7, work out, get ready, eat, study for two hours, and then leave at 11 to go proselyte until 2. Then we come back for medio dia (the Spanish SIESTA time) and eat and study till five. And then we go out and work until 10! And we don’t get dinner... I love it though!

We had some great lessons this week! We set another fecha (baptismal date) for our investigator Carlos, so please pray that he will be able to come to church because he is golden! Salvador is our other investigator with a fecha. And we had the greatest and most spiritual lesson with him this week. And I was able to speak more! But he told us that he thinks that I was sent there to teach him the gospel. And that we were both angels sent there to help him in his life. How amazing is that??  It shows the power that the Lord gives us to do this work because I know there is no way that I could be doing this on my own. 

There is another investigator that we teach that is from India, and she knows NO Spanish and NO English. They are the most interesting lessons ever. They use a LOT of hand motions and a lot of random Spanglish like "husband.. restaurant.. comida.. gusta.. poquito poquito.. husband.." hahahaha. We were about to drop her because we couldn’t communicate, but as we were walking out she stopped us and said "come.. casa.. later. I like.. feeling.. when you´re here." again.. The spirit is so powerful! 

So many stories! We had our first zone meeting in Malaga. Our zone has 40 missionaries! They just combined our district with this zone, because the other one was sooo far away for us. So now we have a giant zone. haha but afterward we all got pizza and that was awesome. Yesterday we had stake conference, in Grenada which is about two hours away haha. But one of our investigators came which was awesome!! 

The Spanish is coming along.. slowly but surely. and now the lessons have been more balanced because I can speak more! But I still can’t hold normal conversations on the street. Last pday, we went to this little pueblo called Mijas, which is a white little town in the mountains and is SO PRETTY! so we got pizza there with our district and made our own chocolate bars at this famous little place! so cool. 

I know that the Lord gives me so much strength and power as I do His work, and that I couldn’t do any of it without him. We really have a power in this calling. It’s not normal for people to give their home address and phone number to some random 20 yr old kids, but it happens every day because they can feel the spirit in our message. It’s amazing to experience:)

Now to answer a view questions.  My comp and I are crazy together. She’s like me on steriods haha. I love my district! There are we three hermanas and six elders. But really only 4 because the other two are the office elders and they never do anything with us. We see the president and his wife like 3 times a week and they’re in our ward! All of us missionaries go to the same ward, so missionaries are like a huge part of the ward! We haven’t eaten anything too weird.. um lental soup that has chicken on the bone. They eat everything on the bone, even when it’s in the soup. But of the 3 eating citas we´ve had they’ve all been good. We haven’t gone door to door, but we will talk to people on our way to each cita (appointment). but we are usually pretty busy with appts! 

Oh, and how I said last week that the weather was perfect.. IT’S FREEZING NOW. Well some days are reeeally cold and some days are perfect. And some days it starts out cold and then gets HOT or the other way around. It’s great. But still probably nicer than back home.. (hahaha sorry family) 

Love you all, thanks for the support! Love, Hermana Knowles

Alyssa with her first assignment in Fuerengirola, Spain.

Alyssa has finished the MTC and has been assigned to her first location. She arrived on 27 Oct. In typical Alyssa fashion it's on the beach. All the photos are from her new assignment. Her new address is:
 

Hermana Knowles

Paseo Jesus Santos Rein Nº 2, 3d-e

Feungirola, 29640 (Malaga)

Spain

If you get a chance I'm sure she'd love a letter. Cheers. Mike

--------------------------------

HOLA! I'm officially out in the field in my first area with my new companion and trainer!! I am with Sister Folsom and she is the BEST! We are already best friends. She's from Seattle and I'm killing her off in 5 weeks:) which means that she is going home next month!! and then I will get a new trainer to finish out the six weeks. I LOVE HER. Fuengirola is our area. It is right next to Malaga and right on the BEACH! haha it's great. From one paradise to the next. Just imagine the best place to vacation in the world and this is it. It's pretty touristy, and this is basically where everyone in Europe goes to retire. So there are a bunch of Scandanavian people here! and also a lot of Africans. I love it!

 

Holy cow this place is GORGEOUS. It goes from pretty mountains with the prettiest towns to the beach and Meditteranean Sea. The homes here are my favorite. They are white with brown roofs with Spanish tile and it's amazing and can't even explain it in words. I love the area and I love my trainer!

Leaving the MTC and leaving my district was hard! But I'm sooo happy to be out here! We left the MTC early last Tuesday morning and took a train to Malaga that took about 3 hours. President and Sister Deere and some other missionaries picked us up and we headed out to this pretty area (which turned out to be in our ward's area) and started proselyting right away! and we had some pretty amazing experiences with that. And then we got to the mission home- which is probably the prettiest home I've seen- and had some orientation and got to meet our trainers! Sis folsom and I got along instantly. She is hilarious! 

 

We stayed at the mission home that night, and had to do some things in the morning, but then we had to take everyone else to the train cuz they all had like 4-8 hour train rides to their area. But ours was right here hahaha. My piso is pretty nice! we all have our own room for our stuff, but sleep in the same room. but I have my own bathroom! We live on the ninth floor, and can see the ocean from our balcony:) haha We are only a couple blocks away. Oh, we have a sorta third companion Sister Andrus. She has feet problems and might go home but lives with us and works in the mission office. She's awesome. None of our drains have been working in our piso though.. haha our sink was so clogged that we had to wash the dishes in my bathroom sink. please pray for my piso!

 

K I love misisonary work!! My first day, we got 6 new investigators! and I set my first fecha (date) for baptism!!! We should actually have three dates, but Raphael needs to quit drinking and Andrea needs to get married. But Salvador has a date for the 22nd! so please pray for them! So my favorite investigators are Andrea and Sebastaion! and their baby girl! Sebastian is less active but coming back, and Andrea is so ready to get baptized but it takes a while for marriages here in Spain. But we love them and the ward loves them a lot, so we call them Los Perfectos! cuz they are perfect:) Raphael is this old man that works at this little kiosk by the beach. So we go visit him in his kiosk every day and he always sets out candy and stuff for us. He is the sweetest man ever! 

Gosh, there have been so many things I don't know what to say! We have about 4 progressing investigators. But we've been teaching a lot of investigators and a lot of lessons! There is a lot of work that needs to be done here! 

We have four future investigators that are all named Ali and are all from Senegal. so we call them Ali 1 Ali 2... we had a cita (appt) with Ali 2, but I think we had the wrong address so we wound up at this appt with 6 other men from Senegal and they let us in and we taught them a little bit and gave them a Book of Mormon in French and they said we could come back later! So they were our six new investigators. But when we went back they ended up dropping us.. hahah. But Ali 2 was there and he wanted us to still call him and another man kept reading in the BofM, so I think they are both still interested! we will see!

So they sorta celebrate Halloween here. It's really funny cuz it's just becoming big and they don't really know how it's done. But we went to the ward Halloween party and that was good.

Sorry this is so long. This week was great and I love the work!!!! and I thought i knew Spanish but I really don't.

Love you all!

Hermana Knowles

Alyssa in her first assignment -- on the beach of course

Hermana Knowles in Fuerengirola, Spain with her new companions. Fuengirola is of course on the beach of the Meditterean coast. Sister Folsom is her new trainer (one with dark hair). Sister Andrus is another companion for a little while too.

Last week in the MTC

This has been such a good week!!! But it has started getting sad. We
had to say goodbye to our favorite teacher early because he is going
back to Ecuador for school. So we threw him a surprise "party" with
balloons and stolen treats from the kitchen haha. Hermano Larrea
is the best. At the end, before he left, we all sang "God be with you
till we meet again." Wow. That was the hardest time I have ever had
singing that song. None of us were even able to get to the chorus,
because all of us got too choked up and were crying. We were so so
blessed to have him as a teacher. The same goes for all of our
teachers. They are all amazing! It's crazy how close we get in such a
short time, and how much love that you grow for people! I can't even
imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye to my district in four
days. They are all headed to Barcelona and I'm headed to Malaga. We
told president it's not fair to stick us together and make us love each
other so much and then rip us apart!! 

There are a lot of funny stories from this week but my favorite was Tuesday morning. haha we were in class during personal time and had opened the window, and a bee
flew in. So we were trying to shew it out but it kept flying into the
light. So someone had the bright idea to turn off all the lights and
then maybe it would be attracted to the light of the sun and fly
outside. So when we did, it went super dark in the room, and the bee
made a beeline (hahaha) straight for Sis McWhorter's face. She
screamed BLOODY MURDER. Not just an ahhh like an
aaaahhhhaahhhhahahhhhhh. hahahah and everyone ran out of their
classrooms to see what happened. It was too funny. Anyways I ended
up being the hero because I hit it mid air with a book and it died, but
that's a whole other story. 

We went to the temple this morning, and watched (most of) the session
in Spanish!! Which was soo cool! And it was my favorite session we´ve
been too. And then the temple pres and his wife took us on a tour of
the rest of the temple. It's been a great morning.

So there is a sister from Tahiti! So you know me and Sis lee were like
“Polynesian!!” We were so excited!! And we had her teach us tamure. It
was a good taste of my Hawaiian home to have here in Spain!

Anyways.. I'm going to miss everyone here so much! BUT, I am so so excited to serve the people of Malaga in just a few days!! This Sunday was amazing, and the most spiritual day we've had here yet. We watched the Joseph Smith movie, which I have seen before. But I felt the spirit more than I had ever before felt when watching it. I was able to go visit all those church sites this summer, and that was amazing, but nothing compares to the spirit I felt watching it as a missionary. I challenge you all to watch it, and think about the miracles and the responsibility we have now. You will be touched! 

Love you all so much! Thanks for the prayers and support. I'll send my new address as soon as I get it:) 

Love
Hermana Knowles

New address--MTC almost complete

Hermana Knowles completes the MTC next week. Her address at the mission home in Malaga will be:

Sister Alyssa Knowles
Spain Malaga Mission
Av. Jesus Santos Rein No.2, 3 D-E
Edif. Ofisol
Fuengirola
29640 Malaga
SPAIN

She'll be in the mission home for a couple of days and then will go to some assignment in the mission. But the mission home will always know where she is. She still loves letters.