"Musical Mormon Chillin' with the Fam"

All of us are different. We all have had different cultural backgrounds and experiences that have truly shaped us into the people that we are now and that we will become. Want to know a little about mine? Well then, keep reading!

Life in a big Family

My whole life has been centered on my family. Growing up, I never really needed to hang out with my friends because I always was content to be with my family. When you have 8 siblings, there is always something going on, and you are never alone. I think this had a huge impact on the person that I am today. When you have a family that large, you have to learn how to share, how to not always be the center of attention, and to understand that you are not always going to get your way. I also had to learn many lessons about where true happiness comes from. With my parents trying to support that many children, we often had to go without some of the extra “frills” of life. But this helped me to understand that money is not what you need to have a fun time with the people that you love. These experiences and lessons have shaped my way of thinking and have helped me to see what matters most in life: The people that you are with, the memories that you can create.

Music to my Heart.

My mom has always believed that if we are to be successful, well-rounded people, we need to be able to play an instrument and be musically literate. When I was 9 years-old, I didn’t agree, but now I couldn’t be more grateful that my mom forced me to take piano lessons, with violin lessons shortly thereafter. Music is one of the biggest aspects of my life, and has grown to be one the most common outlets that I use to define myself.  It is a way for me to express myself in a way that can’t be show in any other form. Playing either the violin or piano has always been a way for me to calm down, to relieve stress, and to just simply do something that I love. I have come a long way since I was an Elementary School student that would fight with her mom about why she wanted to quit music lessons.

“I am a Child of God”

I know who I am, and I know my purpose here on earth. If there is one cultural identity of mine that defines me the most, it would have to be my religious beliefs. I am a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and my beliefs and practices shape everything that I do, and everything that I am. I have been a member my whole life and I have learned these values and principles from my parents. These teachings have shaped my life and make a huge influence on the choices and decisions that I make daily. I have always participated in this way of life, but my true conversion came when I served a mission in Madrid, Spain. I experienced a whole new way of life, and I truly learned for myself that my religion is how I want to define myself. 

Well that is just a little taste of who I am, and those things that shape my cultural identity. I encourage all of you to think about those things that have defined you in order to understand more about your own culture and identity.

******Note to followers: This post has been in response to a class project.

My Grandma Mary and other stuff

I received one last email from Grandma today, that I guess she must have sent right before she passed. Her emails were never very long but those short and simple sentences such as ¨I love you¨ and ¨ My prayers are with you¨ always did give me a little boost, because I know that Grandma has always been one of my biggest supporters. I will always be grateful for that, because the mission has changed my life. Even though at the end of her life, she struggled with many things, I never think about those things when I think of my Grandma Mary. I think of the many times that she took us to ¨La Puente¨ , and the love that we shared for good food, and old classic movies. I think of the endless number of Saturday´s that I spent dusting and vacuuming her house, and how she would buy me KFC after. Who can forget her incredible Christmas parties, where we would eat amazing appetizers and Honey Baked Ham. 7 layer dip anyone? Like I said, we share a love for good food. And let´s just take a second to remember she always owned at ¨Trivial Pursuit¨. To this day, we still joke about Simon Bolivar. I also think of the love the she always showed for our family, and the support she always gave. I also think of how strong her testimony was and how she really did have the ¨Spirit of Elijah¨ I know we always joke about family search, but she has helped so many people and changed many lives through her dedicated service. I love Grandma Mary so much. She was a wonderful person, and an incredible Grandmother.

I know that when something like this happens, it is always hard, and we don´t always understand why. But I do know that the Lord always knows why. Grandma was sick and she needed relief from the pains of the this world. The scriptures in Alma 40: 11-12 really applies to Grandma, and will probably offer some comfort in this hard time. It says that all those people who pass on will be ¨taken home to that God that gave them life¨, and those that are righteous will be received into a ¨state of rest¨ a ¨state of peace¨ and there they shall rest from all their ¨troubles¨ and ¨sorrow¨ I know this is true for Grandma, I know that she has found rest and peace, and I know that she has been reunited with her other family members that have passed on.

Even though we will miss her a lot, and things will probably be different for a while without her, she is not really gone. I know she is still there supporting us and rooting for us to hold on. And I know that we will all see her again, and that we will live together as a family forever.

I can´t even tell you how grateful I am for the knowledge that we have, and for the opportunity that we have to all live together again. It brings me so much comfort, because I don´t know what I would do without every single one of you. I am so grateful for our family, and for the love that we have between us.

I love and miss you all. I really wish that I was at home right now, but I know that I am doing the right thing, and that Grandma would never want me to give up, and that she would want me to keep going and finish strong. And that is exactly what I will do. Because I know that´s what God wants too.

Things are going well here in Alcala. For the past two months, we as missionaries have been planning this fireside, that was to help excite the youth to serve missions, and to just excite the ward in general to get more involved with the missionary effort.  President came and spoke, I spoke about the joy that comes from serving the Lord (Alma 29:9) and other youth spoke, a couple of returned missionaries, it was awesome! The spirit was so strong,and it was such a success. The president came up after and thanked us, and said that it had been a huge success, and this is what we are doing here, trying to help and serve others and inspire the ward. I feel really good about the work we have done here in Alcala. The ward has made such progress these last six months that I have been here. I really am just so happy about it for them, cause I love the members here. 

Today for Pday, we went to El Escorial, a small Spanish pueblo that is surrounded by a mountain, and has this huge castle on the mountain side, and just trees everywhere, probably the most legit Spanish place I have been to yet. Oh the perks of serving a mission in Europe :)

Vallecas

So I´m sure you have all just been on the edge of your seats with excitement to find out where I am getting transferred to, since the odds were that I would leave since I have been in this Vallecas area for 6 months....and yes I am leaving Vallecas, but I am still staying in Barrio 8. They are splitting the Barrio 8 area, and putting me in the new area, which is called Arganda del Rey. So, it technically was in my area before but it was super far away. We only went out there like twice to visit members. 

Hey so alert the newspapers! Julio is officially a member of the church!!! Hahaha finally!  I am so glad that I am still in the same ward! I´m going to be in Barrio 8 for probably half of my mission. It´s like I got called to Latin America instead of Spain, maybe one day I will serve with some Spaniards...maybe.

 I met saw President and Sister Pace!!!!!!! Oh and I got to meet Elder Ballard. Now the latter is a bigger deal, but it was also pretty darn cool to just be sitting in a stake center in Spain and see the Pace´s walk through the door.  When Sister Pace saw me, she ran up to me and gave this huge hug and started crying, and apparently a bunch of hermanas started crying too, because they thought of their moms. haha oops. We snapped a photo after and I think she sent it to you.

It was really cool to meet Elder Ballard! He gave a great talk about how success in a mission is really determined on your desire. I think this is so true because if you desire to work hard and love and help people, then you are probably going to put that desire into action. But if you really just don´t care, then you will most likely struggle. It was a good talk. He had all of the missionaries come up at the beginning and shake his hand, sweet huh?

All is well here is Spain, I am very happy. And even 

though things are challenging at times, it is forcing me to stretch myself a lot.  I really do love it here on the mission and I am so glad that I am here with these people that have become my family.

Hot and Sunny Spain

Oh my goodness, it is so hot here in Spain, I am seriously dying. It has been getting up to 40 C which is like 97 F and someone said that sometimes it gets to be 50 C...which is like 122 F. I don´t know if that´s true, but that´s like boil your feet on the sidewalk hot. 




We went to Segovia today for Pday. It´s about an hour north of Madrid. It´s a really beautiful Spanish city. It´s cool, I feel like I am on my study abroad again, especially when we go inside cathedrals and stuff.

This week has been the hardest of the mission so far. We had some serious disappointments with investigators that are just so close to the waters of baptism. Friday and Saturday were just entire days of having so much faith and then everything crashing down after people use their agency in a disappointing way. But such is life in the mission and back home I suppose. 

Blanca and Family baptism! Everyone in white was baptized except for the Elders and the short one is our bishop. It was really cool to baptize a family.







Hermana Frandsen and I are at this sweet Mexican restaurant.

 



Thanks always for the love and support that I feel from each one of you! I miss the family a lot, but I am so glad that I made the decision to serve a mission, I wouldn´t trade it for anything. I am learning so much, and meeting so many incredible people that I can´t imagine now not having the chance to know them...if that makes sense. The Lord really does know what is best for us and exactly what we need to do with our lives. I think I was always supposed to serve a mission. Heavenly Father just let me choose it for myself, but He always knew that I would choose to come. I know this church is true with all my heart.

  Me and some of my favorite Hermanas in Toldedo.

Four months/seventeen weeks!

Can I just say that the Google hang out thing was like the coolest thing ever! Completely chaotic,  but so cool. I can´t even tell you how great it was to have EVERYONE together on the hangout! Especially Zach! That was an awesome surprise.  All us Seastrand´s together again being weird and so loud.

                A really awesome story is our new investigator David. He is from Nigeria, and he is the VERY FIRST person I ever contacted in Spain. Remember how we went to the park in the CCM on Saturday’s?  He was the very first person I talked to the very first Saturday in the park, he spoke English, and I got his reference. From that time until now, his reference kept getting passed around because he kept moving. He moved into my area where he has stayed and his name ended up with us, and of course I remembered him, because I always had felt like he was special. Now we are teaching him, and he is really determined to change his life! Awesome huh?!! He does have one little problem.....he´s a drug dealer.....but hey even the drug dealers need to have the gospel too right? And he does really want to change his life, so we think he has a lot of promise. I just think it´s awesome cause who would´ve guessed that I´d end up teaching the very first person that I would contact in Spain EVER!

                One story that´s not so awesome is that two of our baptism dates I think are going to fall through...we´ve been teaching with the Elders this family that is a grandma and her 5 grandchildren. Four of them had baptismal dates, but then we started to lay down the law about the word of wisdom and law of chastity....That was a pretty heavy lesson....let´s just say that the teenagers were not too excited about those commandments, and no one came to church except the grandma.  It´s pretty sad when you think people are golden and then you find out they aren’t excited about the complete life change that comes with living the gospel. But if we have faith, a miracle could happen.

                I´m sure Zach can relate when I say that I have had a lot of embarrassing but mostly funny Spanish errors.....the best one from this week.  Our investigator Julio (who is getting baptized on the 8th!) has this bad habit of leaving if we are a few minutes late to the appointment, he´s done it a couple times now and it´s really annoying cause when he is late we wait for like 45 minutes...  So, we were going to be a little late to his lesson cause of the train, so I called him to tell him that and I told him to wait for us because we were coming.  We finally made it to the church and we see him leaving and we´re like what the heck?? So, we chase after him and get him to come back. We´re both saying “Julio why were you leaving?” and he says, “I thought you weren´t coming.” So, I start saying (pretty boldly I might add) “Julio! Yo le amo!” and he and my comp just burst out laughing....I meant to say “Julio, Yo le llamo” (which means I called you or something) but I actually said “Yo le amo” which is I love you. So basically I was just saying strongly, Julio I love you! It was pretty funny. He makes fun of me for it now always.

                One of the weirdest things of my life was on Saturday. We were in the Church teaching a lesson and after we walked out of the room, I suddenly see my old roommate Kaysea from last fall semester at BYU walking down the hall. I was thinking, “What the heck is happening?”  It was sooo weird, two worlds colliding. She is on a study abroad right now and they came to see the temple....It was way weird and it kind of threw me off for the rest of the night...it was just weird.  But yeah, I´m good now.  Just had to fast and teach some lessons to get refocused.

                Well, things over here in Madrid are just fantastic! And life is good. I feel so blessed to be here. The mission really is a gift. I know this church is true with all my heart, and I´m so glad I can share it with all these incredible people that I am meeting. I love you all so much and thanks for all the support and emails. I love hearing what is going on.

I have been out on my mission now for 7 weeks.  I was only in the Provo MTC for 4 1/2 days.  My visa came through and so Monday morning on February 11th, I left Provo at 5:00 a.m. to head to the Salt Lake International Airport.  After 24 hours of traveling, I arrived in Madrid and was taken to the MTC there.  My companion, Sister Norton and I were the only American Hermanas. We were immersed in the language, culture and environment of Spain.  I love it here!  I can see the temple from my room.  It is very pretty and all lit up at night.  One thing that is different from the Provo MTC is that on Saturday's we as an MTC all go to this huge park in Madrid  and proselyte and place Books of Mormon to REAL people. It was kind of scary since I don't speak Spanish, yet. 

So I left the MTC on Tuesday, March 19th  and all the Madrid missionaries went to the mission home, where Sister Jackson had made us Cafe Rio burritos  Ah they were sooo good! Then we went back to the Stake Center by the Temple and got our companions. My first companion is Hermana Frandsen. She is from California and studies at BYU. The Lord has blessed me with a fantastic companion. We have a lot in common and just laugh about stuff that happens. She's a really hard worker, and really tries to listen to the spirit. My first area is called Vallecas. It's about 30 minutes away from the Temple square area, but we live right behind the temple. So basically I am still in the exact same place. I still get to see the Madrid Temple at night. I am loving it here! The espanol is coming slowly but surely. I feel so blessed to be here, and every day I realize more that this is a complete gift from the Lord, and hardly a sacrifice  and that it is going to bless me in my life more than I will ever deserve. 

Called to Serve!!

After almost 5 months of waiting, I am finally leaving on my mission! I have been called to serve for 18 months in the Spain Madrid Mission, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it! I was originally supposed to leave on January 16^th, but my MTC entrance date was delayed because they decided to send me straight to Spain. But of course, with my luck, I haven’t received my visa yet….so now I’m going to the Provo MTC anyway. It’s ok though because I have 5 friends going in on the same day! But cross your fingers that I get my visa soon, because I’ve been hearing horror stories about the Spanish visas…So tonight, I will be set apart as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. I will officially begin that missionary service.

I found this on pinterest, and it pretty much sums up why I decided to serve a mission.

I am very excited/nervous/anxious/literally freaking out about this opportunity that I have been given to serve the Lord. I hope to be the best missionary that I can. My mom will post letters and pictures on here occasionally, so if you want to, you can stay updated on my missionary adventure in Spain!