Another great week, as I predicted.

Aloha everyone!!! I am just doing absolutely fantastic here in Elche. As I was expecting, this was such a great week for us and for me especially.

First off, remember that woman that I told you all about last week? The one that we had to run to catch up with? Well, we had a cita with her on Monday and she was so excited to learn. She says that she doesn´t know what to believe because one religion says this, another says that, and so on. We were talking to her about the Book of Mormon and we were reading Moroni´s promise with her, Moroni 5:3-5 and she was reading it and kept reading until the end of verse 7 and when she finished she was so excited, she started clapping her hands and basically jumping up and down in her seat exclaiming, "It´s true! I know it´s true!!" She was even crying. We could feel the Spirit really strong there and it was such an amazing experience to see a reaction like that. We´ve had another cita with her since, and she even came to a Stake Relief Society with us. She really likes it so far and we´ll continue teaching her and see where it goes. Her name is ....A. (haha some people in my family laugh at me/with me for using only letters and say that all they have to do is say the alphabet in their prayers and they get everyone. :P It is pretty funny.)

Tuesday we started the long trip to Sevilla. We basically spent all day in a bus and stayed the night at a hotel there in Sevilla for the conference the next day with all 201 missionaries in our mission. The conference was a-ma-zing. Many people thought that this conference would be all about getting ipads, which it was, but it was more about principles of the gospel that we need to use in our lives, such as repentance, agency, listening to the Spirit, and so much more. This conference is not only going to help me in the mission, but help me in my life. They talked a lot about is being agents not objects and how we should be in control of our decisions and the things we do daily. The people that came to speak to us were Elder Dyches of the Seventy and Elder Allen of the Missionary Department. Here are a couple of quotes that they shared with us that I really like...

"Are you an agent? or are you an object?" Sometimes we let things control our lives when we should be the ones in control.

"If you always do what you´ve always done, you´ll always get what you´ve always got." and to go along with the first, "If you´re not satisfied, quit doing the same things." Sometimes we´re not happy about some aspects of our lives, but we don´t do anything to change it. Another one..."A bird sitting in a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because it´s trust is in it´s own wings."-unknown

As we strive to have the spiritual strength to overcome all, we won´t ever be afraid of the unknown and unexpected.

I just learned so much there that I want to apply in my life, especially my life when I get home. We spent the rest of the day after that in the bus and we arrived in Alicante at about 1:00 in the morning, so we spent the night in the SHE´s (Sister Training Leaders) piso and went to our area the next morning.

Yesterday was a great day. I was able to Skype home to my family! It was good to see some of them and talk a little bit.

Well, I don´t have much more time to write. I hope all of you are doing well and I appreciate all of the e-mails! Love you all!

Love, Hermana Shanda Rowley