Updated photos from last couple of months

What a week

HOLA! madre mia, its been a good week! Full of some struggles and also some miracles, and a LOT of hours on buses! 

monday- normally its our pday, but all the trainers headed down to the mission home for a trainers training, so i said goodbye to my sweet comp in the morning and headed out on the treacherous 9 hour trip from Cartagena to Fuengirola. But it was a fun adventure! and we had a great training, with some cafe rio burritos from hermana Deere! Then we headed back to Malaga to sleep at the Hermanas piso, and we got lost on the way. 

Tuesday- Basically we had nothing to do until 6 when we went to pick up our hijos, so president let us have a pday since we couldnt monday. So we used that time and went and saw my old district in Fuen, ate some kebab, visited Andrea (my favorite investigator!) and Rafael (my recent convert).. so it was awesome! then we went to the mission home, and got paired up with our companions! I am training Hermana Swenson!! She is 20, from Sandy, Utah, has 3 siblings, is into theater, and is a vegetarian! (which now means that the members dont give us meat when they feed us. :( sad!!) she is GREAT!! the best! she also doesnt know much spanish, but claro i didnt know anything when i started either. So it has pushed my spanish skills a lot. But hey! i realized that my spanish is actually a lot better than i thought it was.. i am able to understand everything, and am able to communicate what i want to say! POR FIN!!  

Wednesday- We went and ate some lunch in the malaga train station (some good ole burger king. its like a little taste of home) then started the long bus ride back home. and got home at about 9:30, so that was all for that day! 

thursday- weekly planning! then we taught Juan Pedro, and some other investigators and had a noche de hogar. 

Friday- spent most of the day walking around. No one was home!! and talked to a lot of people in the street. But we had our NDH with my favorite member and his son! He always, without fail, feeds us sandwhiches, popcorn in a casserole dish, with two plates of chips, and coke. Its the best. 

Saturday-We cleaned the church buildings, taught a few lessons, walked around a lot again, and had correlation.

Sunday- Juan Pedro got confirmed a member of the church! and also received the priesthood! :) and a member of the 70 came and spoke to us. it was so spiritual! and then we had lunch at our bishops house which ended in a pushup contest haha:) and we found a great new investigator that we are meeting with again tonight!!:) 

This week was good! it had some rough points, but it was a great week:) and i have my great new HIJA! which has been such a blessing. she is so motivated and so willing to work. 

thanks for all the love and support! love you all! 

Hermana Knowles

I'm going to be a mom

Well... this has been quite the week! Honestly probably one of the craziest that i have had on the mission. let me begin...

Tuesday, we had interviews with president.He started by asking me ifi had any questions, and i said no, so he said he´d start with a question.. and he asked me how i handled stress. so here i am.. all clueless, saying prayer.. sciptures.. etc. and then he says "Oh good, because you are going to be  doing some pretty hard things coming up. You are going to be training a brand new missionary." and then i panicked. hahaha we were not expecting that! but, i can say that i feel very humbled that the Lord trusts me with this. Of course i am nervous, especially cuz my spanish is nowhere near perfect, and i dont have much experience, but i know that the Lord will always be there to help me through everything. And i am feeling not as stressed about it anymore.. but that may be because i have now hada week to process it;)

So.. that was crazy.. and then we had to start packing up all of my companions things and deep cleaning the piso!! (that was well needed) and my comp wasnt very excited to leave. we weresure there would be no changes because she had only been there for 2 tranfers, so it was hard for her. i sure am going to miss hermana Benavides! 

And then.. it was hna benavides´s BIRTHDAY! so we made sure to make that special for her!! 
and well, we got permission to move our baptism up, because he wnted my companion to be there as well. So instead of having it this coming saturday, we had it sunday night! WE HAD A BAPTISM!!:) 

Let me explain about him for a little. Juan Pedro was just a little miracle for us. We found him week 3 of this transfer, and he got baptized week 6!! He loved all of the discussions, and tells us how this gospel makes him feel complete again. He has had some problems in his life, but the gospel hasbeen able to help him feel this void. We were also able to help him quit smoking! We taught him the word of wisdom right away, and the elders came to give him a blessing to help him. and right after the blessing he threw  his packet of cigarretes on the table, and has not smoked since:) ahh! he is the best!! and he got BAPTIZED!!:) 

And well now, i am in Malaga. we had about a 9 hour trip yesterday from cartagena to get here, and had trainers training last night. So today is sort of our pday, because we pick up our hijos at 6! i am so excited!!:) 

anyways.. wish me luck! talk to yall next week:) 
les quiero!! 
Hermana Knowles

Milagros

hey mi familia y mis amigos!

It has been a great week here in Cartagena full of some miracles!! Well, the truth is we see miracles every day on the mission.Its true that the Lord will put people in your path who are prepared. 

Our investigator, Juan Pedro, is progressing and preparing really well for his baptism next week!!:):) He came to a baptism on Friday, and came to church again yesterday, and had told us of the impact that the gospel has had on him. He says that now he feels complete, and feels the hand of the Lord in his life! He is so great! And he is working hard to overcome his addiction of smoking so that he can be baptized! Im am so excited for him. This shows the impact that the gospel can have on lives. Through the gospel we can feel more complete, we will always feel the love of the Lord, and see his hand as He blesses us. Please pray for him! :)

This week has been a special week for our mission, we had a goal to set 250 baptismal fechas, when normally we can about 115. And we were working hard to invite everyone we could!! I was in intercambios with Hermana Adrian (an mtc amiga!) and we saw a neat little miracle! We were going out contacting while we were waiting for our comps to get back from intercambios, and we passed by this guy waiting at a bus stop. But i felt like we needed to go back, so we went back and talked to him, and started sharing the plan of salvation with him. He was really receptive, and well, long story short, Hermana Adrian asked if as he learned more, if he would prepare to be baptized, and he said YES! And we talked to him some more and set up a cita and stuff, but it was a really cool experience!! 

On Thursday we did intercambios with the SHE´s (sister training leaders) and i was with Hermana Ancalle here in Cartagena. We were trying to visit an investigator, but she wasnt there, so we ended up toque-ing like the whole 10 story building.. and got 7 futuros out of it! 7 people who we set citas with to come back and visit this week! and one of them gave us 3 references!! it was so cool! its our edificio de oro. (golden building) haha that was a cool little miracle as well! out of about the 10 people we talked to, 7 said we could come back. ahh! milagros! 

We also set another fecha with this boy Bryan! He´s 15, so we will work with him to get him prepared for baptism as well:)

There were also FOUR baptisms this last weekend!:) one for our ward, of our good friend Sergio! and the other three was this cute little family for Barrio 3. :)

Lets just say it was a week full of milagros, i know we will see even more coming up these next few weeks:) 

les quiero muchisimo!

Hermana Knowles

Recent photos

Holaaaa!!!

ahh this week went by way to fast. i have no idea how it is already another pday??? anywho its been quite an interesting but good week. it started out with a little miracle on monday...
We finally set a cita with one of our investigators that i had never met before, and we went monday night to see him. Well, he lives in a house with about ten random people, and we went there at our scheduled time but he wouldnt answer his phone or the door (even though we could hear his phone ringing inside..) but there was this other girl who was locked out of this house and was waiting to get in too. So we were like hey, lets talk to her! and we started talking, eventually started up on the book of mormon, and she was interested! but just as we were explaining it someone opened the door, but then this girl invited us in and we sat with her and finished explaining it! and she is so awesome! So while we were talking, we saw our other investigator come down the stairs, see us, and turn around to go back up. but hna benavides called him out and made him come down. haha so it comes to find out he had been drinking, thats why he wouldnt answer us. He said he had just found out some stuff about his wife and kids, so he was upset. Long story short, we talked to him for a while and said how this gospel can help, but he has to be willing to do his part. and he said yes and that he was wanting to change and wanted us to help! it would just take a lot of patience. So that was a miracle to be able to find this girl, who is golden, and talk to our other investagator and help him out. 
With him we set a fecha for baptism to work towards! and yesterday he had promised to come to church.. but he never showed up.. UGHHHH. that is the most frustrating thing. We can do all we can as missionaries, but people need to do their part in order to change. i just want to smack that into place hahahah. but i cant. so.. 
Well, a lot more things happened this week that i dont remember. It was a week with a LOT of walking in this freezing cold wind, a lot of frustration, a lot of rejection, and a lot of miracles. So basically a normal week for us:) oh, and a lot of churros!!! (i love spain and their churros con chocolate trucks) 
We are super excited for everything we have ahead of us though. and i know the lord is helping us every step of the way. 
have a great week! love you all!
con amor, hermana Knowles

Week 2 in Cartegena

So it has been an interesting week! We finally got money so we have been able to survive!

We had a special day this last week called "Dia de Diamonte," where basically we didnt plan any citas and we went and contacted the whole day! it was a lot of work. but we had some help from the members here! Our mission goal was to get 2015 futuros, meaning each companionship needed about 20. We lograred our meta and got 2414!! milagros! (i hope you enjoy my awful spanglish) Hermana Benavides and i didnt get as many as we had hoped for.. but we did get more than 20! we did have some pretty interesting experiences that day.. hahah we had a lot of old men YELL at as.. while this one man was yelling at us and walking away, this other guy came up to us and starting saying how he had been taught by misisonaries and that he was wanting to be baptized a few years ago.. so we were thinking "oh wow, this guy is golden! this is great!" but then he continued on to say that he wasnt baptized because he had been sent to prison.. and he was only out for two days for medical reasons. and then proceded to ask us for money. hahah so.. he wasnt so golden. 

But we had some other good contacts that we are hoping to turn into investigators, because that is what we need right now! we currently dont have anyone progressing, the work is a little hard right now. but we are working hard to get it moving!! 

Well we had a pretty great pday with our zone hiking up this mountain to a castle! It reminded me a little of table rock, with sage brush and all.. except for theres not a super sick castle at the top haha. I LOVE SPAIN. 

I am growing to love the work more and more everyday. Even when its hard, or when im tired as heck, or when im just hungry (thats basically all the time, its a mission curse) and just want to rest, we keep pushing through, and have received blessings. I dont kow if i have ever been as happy as i am now. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. 

I never remember all of the things i was wanting to say.. just know that The Lord will never leave us alone. Even in moments where we forget him, He will never forget us. He is so forgiving, and is waiting for us with open arms. He invites every one to come unto him, no matter their circumstances or past. Trust in the Lord with everyone! and he will pour out blessings upon you. This is something that i have been learning thoughout my life and especially in my mission. The Lord LOVES each and every one of us. 

LOVE YOU ALL. gue tengan una buena semana! 

Con amor, Hermana Knowles