The first photo is of Holly and Hermana Henderson, her awesome companion. This was taken south of Benidorm as they rode down the coast with a member to have dinner at someone's home.
The next photo is of Holly as she is going down the mountain that they hike in the mornings for exercise. She says it's just around the corner from her apartment. Isn't her hair getting long?
The last photo is the view from the mountain across to Benidorm. Wowzer! That is one beautiful Mediterranean Sea and city of Benidorm! I can see why they nicknamed it Beniyork, for all the skyscrapers.
Our first email from Holly in Benidorm was full of details. Here's the story in her own words:
Hey MOM! Oh my. Okay so here I am seriouly, in Mini New York! It looks so much like it with all the tall buildings and all. But it is SOSOSOSOSOSO BEAUTIFUL. Wow. I´ve never been anywhere more beautiful in my entire life. Yesterday we went to eat at an english couples house who live about 45 mintues outside of benidorm and i was blown away by the view. The houses all tucked away into the sides of the mountains, the MOUNTAINS!!! YEs. I am surrounded by mountains. The Mediterraneon or however you spell that, the train that was traveling over the hills, the buildings and the churches... oh man. it was amazing. the family pulled over and let us take a picture. it was beautiful.
yesterday for our exercise, we went hiking cause there is a mountain just around the corner from us and it was the most amazing thing that i have done. we ended up at the top of a mountain overlooking the sunrise and the city. i took pictures and a video. unbelievable.
the ride from Alicante to Benidorm is also one of a kind. We take a train, tram type thing nad it goes through the country side and a long side the beach almost the entire time. We get to take the trip every week. so lucky. Heavenly Father must really love me. He always sends me to the hardest, newest areas, but they are the most beautiful!
SO get this though, I might not end my mission here in Benidorm. We got a call from our mission president a week or two ago and he told us that he is thinking about closing the area and sending us to a new area to open it up cause there hasn´t been any success here in this area for so long and there is a new area in Alicante that needs to be opened. we´re both pretty new, so we don´t know the area. it´s like a whitewash, or thats when they take old missionaries out and put in 2 brand new ones. that is kind of like what we are doing right now. we´ll have to see what we can do. We call it Operation Save Benidorm! haha.
guess what? my hija, hermana grant is training! that means that i am a grandmother now cause my daughter is giving birth! at zone conference we will be 3 generations :) SO much fun.
As for missionary work, the first thing we did was get to church on sundy and start passing out pass along cards so that the members could see that we are here to work! and then we put up a big sign with our pictures on it to say that we are here to WORK! and all the members were really receptive to it. so, we´ll see what happens.
we were knocking doors, and nobody was listening to us and so we decided that we were going to sing to the next person that answered the door. so we got our hymn books ready and we rang the doorbell. we heard someone coming so we took a breath to be ready to sing, and as the door swung open, this strange looking, super tall man in a tiny white bathrobe opens the door. both of us just froze, and didn´t know what to do. the man shook his finger at us to say no and closed the door. we fell on the floor laughing it was so funnY! haha.
one woman tried to pay us to go away from her door while we were knocking doors. so funny! i almost cried laughing afterwards.
the work is hard, but I am having the time of my life here in benidorm with all the chaos that is going on. there is so much to do here. and so little time to do it. i don´t want to waste a single second.
One week later:
Best week ever. Operation Save Benidorm is well under way. I get to go to VALENCIA next week! YEp. I am going to see all the members and Alex and Nice and Virginia. I am so excited. It´s stake conference and Benidorm is in the stake of Valencia. Oh man. SO many blessings from being here in Bendorm and trying to rescue the area. I have seen a huge change in the branch here. We are getting the branch excited about missionary work by passing out pass along cards to the members every sunday and asking them to feed us and trying to get them to share the gospel with their friends. We are trying to light the fire here in Benidorm with Missionary Work, and it´s working! YES! I love it here. I am going to tell our President that Benidorm is the best area ever and that he can´t send us to Alicante to open up a new area. He just can´t do it! It´ll have to wait for another set of missionaries cause i am here to BAPTIZE Benidorm!
1 comment:
holy cow!
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