Sister Ivy Carlson - Madrid Spain Mission

 Holaaaa a todos!! It's Monday again! I swear this has been the fastest transfer ever - it's over in 2 weeks! But I hope you all had an amazing week and that you're thriving! 😁 Our friend Maritza is getting baptized this Saturday on the 15th!!! She just had her baptismal interview, and we were kind of worried the whole time because she always has so many questions. But apparently, our district leader was very prepared and helped her out a lot. He did say "hey Hermanas she's great, but did you know that she drinks coffee every day?" We had no idea but apparently, it's just a tiny bit before work to keep her going during the day. But this morning,  we got a text from her with a photo of her drink and she said: "I prefer Nesquik"!! We honestly have the best friends 🥰 Ok gross story (sorry in advance). So before I got to Leganés, apparently a recent convert gave the sisters an entire fish and some other ingredients to make a soup from his country.

Hoooooooola! Cómo están? I hope you all had a súper good week! First of all... I HIT 6 MONTHS IN THE MISSION!!!! I come home in less than 1 year from now!! It's absolutely wild, the time has flown by. Last Monday we went to Toledo again, and...it was awful, again. Last time we just walked around for 20 minutes and then sat in a park with our zone for 5 hours, and this time we did some shopping (for just 30 minutes) and got lunch and then..sat in a park for 2 hours. We were going to try to go to a castle but it was closed like everything else. Toledo is officially the city of broken dreams and I'm never going again. Also, it was 108°. But that's ok! Because today for PDay we went to Sol! The city of fulfilled dreams! Haha, it was so much fun. We started by going to the Prado (an art museum in Madrid) and we were there for 3 hours - it's huge. It was so beautiful and I'm glad I did it with Hermana Romero! I wanted to go when I went to Sol for the first time because, y

Hola a todos! I hope you all had a good week 😁 These past few weeks have been good! But we're having transfers tomorrow...and I'm leaving Móstoles! 🥺 I'm super sad to leave Hermana Kay because we've only been together for 1 transfer and she's the actual best! But I'm going to Leganés!! It's about 20 minutes away and in the same zone haha, not too different. My new companion is Hermana Romero! She's from Argentina but has lived in Spain for most of her life, so I'm pretty excited to get to know her and to learn a lot of Spanish really quickly!! We had the opportunity to go to a few member citas this week, which was great. One of them was an absolute disaster but we were dying laughing most of the time. We put the address in our phone and it was a 15-minute walk away. The woman we were visiting told us very strongly not to be late or make her wait, so we left 30 minutes before the cita. As we're going there, my companion starts walking faster all

Hola a todos! How are you all? Well, this week was absolutely insane. On Monday, we went to Alcorcon which is in our district! We had to ask our district leader for permission to leave our area, (and we wanted to go there to go to IKEA) and they said "you can only go if we're invited". Great! Our district is just 4 people, Hermana Kay and I and them, and they're both a little bit awkward but we said ok. The day was a disaster. We didn't even meet them or go to IKEA because we couldn't get there (it was across a freeway from where we were) and the bus didn't take our cards or cash. But it's ok! Kind of a wasted pday, but we're also kind of used to that after so many pdays in quarantine! On Tuesday we had zone conference and heard messages from our mission presidency! It was so good as usual, and I'm always impressed by how inspired our leaders are. They also announced that the Spanish government accepted their proposal, and they got permission t

Hola a todos!! How are you all? Sorry, it's been a hot minute... literally! I don't know why, but the sun is definitely a lot more powerful in Spain than in the United States! So last week Hermana Christensen and I went to Sol, which is in the middle of Spain! It was so much fun 😁 We went to Retiro park, which is also the park in the famous pointillism painting "Sunday in the park" and it was so beautiful. Also, I held a turtle!!! Best day of my life. This past week we had transfers! I'm still here in Móstoles, but my companion went to Pavones which is really close to the Madrid temple! My new companion is Hermana Kay! She's so fun and this week has been great 😊  It's been a teeny bit stressful because now I'm the one who knows the area and I have to set up the lessons and introduce my companion to everyone, but it's been good. A few of our friends are going through some really difficult things, so we've been staying in contact with them and

Hola a todos!! How are you all? Espero que todo esté bien 😁 I can't write a ton this week because we just hit phase 1 in Spain, so we can leave! We're chilling at the Sister Training Leader's piso right now! We're going to have a sleepover tonight, so it's pretty exciting to  have some human interaction from someone that isn't my companion for the first time in months 😊  It's been 90 degrees every day here! The weather went from cold and cloudy to blistering heat real quick.  Just in time for us to go back outside RIP  Things are good here and we're going to be transitioning back into "normal missionary life" little by little! Facebook men are still interesting, and one of our less active friends answered our video call while he was smelling flowers in a field! Also one of our friends we were teaching sent us a text that said: "I'm not interested in your message, sorry"!! It broke our hearts but it's ok! We're thriving I

Hola!! Ok so right after I sent last week's email about James being fuerte and progressing towards baptism, we called him randomly that day and he told us he doesn't want to be baptized. Rip. But it was interesting because he was kind of mumbling when we asked him what his doubts were. I know he knows it's true. We explained that we usually have trials right before we make a good decision (like baptism), and we answered his questions. He said that there wasn't any historical evidence of the book of Mormon like there is for the bible, he grew up in Peru but never learned anything about Nephites or Lamanites. We explained that, but he was just kind of off the entire time. He feels the spirit when he reads but I guess he's going to investigate other churches to see if he feels the same feeling. He was looking on the internet for answers (worst idea) and found some "anti" literature of course, instead of coming to us. I asked him if he prayed about his doubts

Hola a todos! How are you all? Espero que super bien!! Ok, exciting news- we can go outside!!! A little bit! The government put out a schedule for everyone, so from 6-10am you can go out and exercise, 10-12 elderly people can go out for a walk, 12-8 kids can be outside, and 8-11pm we can go out again and exercise/walk! We've been going out twice a day for two days and it's heaven. I'm finally getting to see some of Mostoles and it's been so fun.  Our friend James who has a baptismal date is still excited and progressing! He might be moving back home to Peru in June, so we're hoping to be able to get the Capilla (chapel) open in time to meet his date of May 16. Heavenly Father has a plan and we've already seen so many quarantine miracles here, I'm sure everything will work out the way it should! Also, we're teaching a girl named Cherry from Taiwan! She lives in Madrid! She's learning Spanish, we teach her in English, and she prays in Mandarin. She

Hola a todos!! I don't have much time, but how are you all? The quarantine just got extended again until May 9th!! Woo! If they add three more weeks, I'll complete my training in quarantine. Que bendición! We have a fecha!! Our friend James wants to be baptized and we set up a date! Miracles only come after the trial of our faith, and I was definitely being tried. But I know that God's timing is perfect and that as long as we keep striving, we'll see that our efforts are not being done in vain. We had our sacrament meeting over video call yesterday, and not even the bishop showed up. Just James! But it was great. We taught him about service, which is really relevant right now with all of the service being done around the world to try to make this crazy situation better. Acts of service aren't in short supply, and we can all do a little bit to bring hope and happiness to the lives of others! That's all I have time for but I love you all! Stay tuned for

Hola!! This email will be pretty short, lo siento! I don't have too much time! I'm thriving! Kind of. We're staying busy and using technology to find and teach, which is great, but it's definitely hard staying here all day every day in our one-room piso. The quarantine just got extended for a few more weeks too, so we're reevaluating everything haha. We can do hard things, and we've already been seeing miracles as we've been doing the work this way! Heavenly Father creates the path, and He won't ask us to do anything we can't.  I don't know about you, but general conference was exactly what I needed! I was so inspired and uplifted by the messages we heard. I loved the themes of hope and healing, as well as hard work and change. This is our time and our chance to gather Israel in creative ways we never have before. People's hearts and minds are opening to this message, and now is the time for action. As much as the adversary is t

Hola a todos! How are you all? It seems like the situation changes every day with everything going on in the world. We are staying in Spain, and my mission president said it would be more dangerous if we went home than if we just stay where we are. Luckily over the past few weeks, we've kind of learned how to work in quarantine and we're staying pretty busy. We usually have 5 citas every day, and we're slowly meeting the members of our ward and our amigos! Also, I have a new trainer! I was with my trainer for about 5 days but she ended up going home because of health issues. It was pretty hard on me, but my new trainer and I get along really well and we're both new to the area! So it's an adventure 😁 My companion and I wrote notes to stick on some of our neighbor's doors because we can't go out and meet people in the streets, so we take all the excitement we can get. Also, we've met some of them and they're awesome! One of them, last week