Finding JOY 6/18

Hello everyone!!! This week has flown by, yet at the same time it feels like an eternity. Time is a weird thing isn't it? We had zone conference last Wednesday, and it was incredible, it answered questions that I didn't even know I needed answered. In conference, we talked a lot about diligence and it just helped me have that excitement needed for the work. It was also very emotional, President wrote us a song (he writes songs for us frequently) and it was the cutest thing, he barely even got through singing it because he was so emotional. The Daytons are incredible people and I am so grateful for all they have done for me and for this entire mission. They are such incredible examples of true Christ like love for everyone.
This week we were traveling quite a bit in our area and on Thursday I had an intercambio (exchange) with Hermana Muñoz. She lives with us so no traveling was required. She is from Cali, Colombia and I love her with all my heart. I loved the way she looked at finding those on the street, she would look at someone and say "futuro sacerdocio" (future priesthood holder) or "futuro sociedad de socorro" (future member of relief society). This was such a better way of looking at things. As we talked to them with that in mind, it made me feel that we really were here building up the kingdom of God. And if the person didn't accept out invitation, we planted a seed for the next missionaries that would come along. :) I love seeing how the spirit guides us everyday, when you contact 5 people in a row who have already met with the missionaries, you have to realize that you were guided right to those people!!!
Our teaching pool has disappeared... almost completely. So we've been having to be out finding new people, working with members, etc. Yesterday I was feeling a bit low because none of our friends made it to church. I sat down with my companion and asked her how we could feel more Joy in the work. We wrote a list of times we've felt joy and we came to a conclusion that the way to feel that joy is to be grateful for all that is around you. There are always little miracles every single day. As we noticed those throughout the day we were able to enjoy so much more. I also love looking at the word Joy like this:
J- Jesus Christ
O- others
Y- yourself 
Love you all!!!! 
Hermana Bangerter 

Theses two pictures are from the sister Conference!

One year in the mission!! 6/12

Hey today we are in Barcelona so we don't have the same email time! Love you all!!!!!

I'm so happy!!!!!!

Well I officially cannot believe it, I hit a year in the mission tomorrow, time absolutely flies! Wow the mission has been the most incredible experience of my life, it has taught me so much. I will forever be grateful for the growth of my testimony, all that the Lord has taught me, and most importantly, how my relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ has grown. I have learned who I want to be and most importantly who my Heavenly wants me to be. He knows me personally and I have felt His love for me everyday here on the mission. I have grown to love the people of Spain and everyone of my companions. I have been able to feel just a tiny bit of the love God has for His children and it is so incredible. I have felt of this love and I now have the desire to share that love with people through out my entire life, and not just help others feel of His love but help others recognize their divine worth. The knowledge that we are sons and daughters of God is something I have grown up knowing but here on the mission, I have been able to realize what it really means. Having this knowledge is something that should change how we think about ourselves, that we all have a divine potential and a divine destiny. I know that God has a plan for each and every one of us, sometimes his plans don't match up with our plans but that is when we need to humble ourselves and accept His will. He knows us better than we know ourselves and learning to put out trust in Him and being obedient to His commandments are the most important things we can do in this life. I love my Heavenly Father with all I have and I love His Son Jesus Christ. Learning of Him and learning to be like Him is key. Jesus Christ is our perfect example, He lived a perfect life, and not only that, He atoned for our sins and has felt every pain and frustration we have or will ever feel. We should rely on Him in every moment because it is only through Him that we can truly be happy, in this life and for the eternities. I know this church is His church, and it was restored by Joseph Smith. We have a living prophet, Russell M. Nelson guiding us today. We have the priesthood restored to the earth so we can make covenants with God here on earth that are essential to our eternal salvation. I love being a missionary and I have loved every moment of this past year through the sweat and tears and I'm so excited for the next 6 months ahead of me!
This week has been crazy, we traveled to Bilbao and had such an inspirational women's conference! It was amazing, Hermana Dayton traveled around the country and has created an organization to help women with their self esteem and how to feel comfortable with how they look and I'm really excited to apply what she taught! We also had a time where we could ask president and Hermana Dayton any question we wanted and it was honestly so spiritual, they are such inspired people and the have touched countless lives here in Spain! They have not had easy lives and hearing their stories and all that they have done is so inspiring! 
Now we are traveling to Barcelona to have interviews and zone conference! Our very last with the Daytons. :( I love them with all my heart! We are working hard to gain the trust of the members here. Something we have started doing is sending videos that we make to encourage the members to share the gospel and we have seen some great results. Members have told us their desires and their fears and expressed to us, that they have more excitement to share the gospel! Love you all!!!
Hermana Bangerter 

"Fill the world with love" 6/5

"Fill the world with love" is a big theme here in the Spain Barcelona mission. Every week our president writes a letter to the mission and his theme this week was to fill the world with love. I loved it, it went along with so many lessons I learned this week. One of the most important lessons we can learn as missionaries and as children of God is that we are surrounded by choice sons and daughters of God each day. God loves each and every one of them just as he loves us. In 1 John 4:19 it says, "we love him, just as he loves us." I have learned to love this scripture; it shows us who taught us how to love. Our Heavenly Father taught us how to love and we can continually learn how to love as we come closer to His Son Jesus Christ.
A question that has been in my mind a lot since arriving here in Zaragoza, "how can I love as the Savior loves?" we all know the scripture, "thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, might, and mind, and the second is like unto it is to love thy neighbor as thy love thyself." I know that love is essential in our lives and especially in this work. In presidents letter he said how easy it is to love those who are handsome, nice, charismatic, or popular, but real love is when we love those who insult us, despitefully use us, are dirty, poor, sick, etc. This is real love!!!!! This is the love we need to pray for. And Moroni 7 teaches how essential it is to plead and pray for this love! Just as the Savior did we need to love others even when it is not convenient, mourning with those who mourn, sharing their burdens, and continually praying for those around you.
I know may Savior is the perfect example of love and I strive daily to show others the love that He has for them.

Miracle story: Our progressing investigators dropped off the face of the earth. They fired on us and we have yet to be able to contact them. Right after the cita (visit) we were pretty upset, so I said to my companion, “we have two options right now, we can stay here and be sad about it, or we can go out and prove to the Lord that we are willing to work to find his prepared children.” At that moment, it started to pour rain, but we went out in the Calle and talked to everyone we walked past. Mostly everyone called us crazy because of the pouring rain, but right before we got on the bus to go to piso (our apartment) we contacted a man named fernando. This man had met with missionaries before and told us he knew it was meant to be that we found him at that time. It was such a miracle!
LOVE you all!!!!
Hermana Bangerter! 

Hello from Zaragoza 5/21

Hello from good old Zaragoza!!! It's been a great week, it's kind of weird walking everywhere completely lost I'll be honest. It's been a while since I've felt so lost in a city! So Zaragoza is a little city kind of in the middle of no where. Also, something special about Zaragoza is.. It's ALWAYS windy, non stop. That's pretty fun! It's usually pretty cold in the morning then really hot in the afternoon, then freezing again at night. We've met with a few members here and they are all super nice. There's definitely a bit of a wall between the missionaries and the members, it was a different church experience yesterday. So I am really excited to start working with the members and just breaking down that wall piece by piece. There's a lot of work that needs to be done here, it seems to me like there's just A TON of people that are just waiting to be baptized. So I know for sure we'll see some big miracles here! We have some progressing investigators right now, a mother and a son, Ivania and Johan they are super great. They've been teaching them for a while now and they have a date set for June 9! A big miracle we saw this week was with a man named Nestor! He actually saw a tarjeta (card) to some missionaries on the bus and ended up calling the number!!! He is incredible, he has two kids, Steven and Natalie. They are the cutest, Natalie is 8 years old and Steven is 11. We were able to meet with them twice this week! We taught them the restoration and it was one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission! We invited them to pray at the end but they didn't really know how. So we taught them and each of us offered a prayer and wow it was so precious! Steven asked in his prayer if this is the true church and Nestor said that he believes our message is true, and he asked for help to know. It was absolutely amazing. They have baptismal dates for June 16!
My companion is amazing, wow the funniest person I have ever met. The perfect way to describe her, sin vergüenza (without any shame). She isn't afraid to do anything and she just loves the work and sings in the street and she puts her whole heart into everything. She has the strongest testimony and I'm just so blessed to be her companion!
Love you all!
Hermana Bangerter 

Hermana Bangerter is transferred! 5/15

Well what a week it has been, it has just been full of emotions. I'm now writing you from a Dunkin Donuts shop here in Zaragoza. Definitely a bit different compared to the mission office, ha I was a bit spoiled in Barcelona. But as you can tell, I've been transferred! It's been an emotional few days as I've had to say goodbye to soooo many people that I love. I definitely left a part of my heart in Barcelona. Sunday was fast and testimony meeting so I was able to share my testimony. I was definitely holding back tears as I looked out at so many faces that I love so much. I was able to learn and grow so much in that area and I'm very excited to apply it to my new area in Zaragoza. We live 45 minutes out of our area here. My companion is so great, she is very energetic and loves the work. This companionship was inspired and I'm very excited to be here! My companions name is Hermana Helton, she's from Iowa and she has about 4 months in the mission! We live in a 4 man piso (apartment) here and the other Hermanas are natives so I'll be able to speak some more Spanish! I'm really excited to get working with the members here and just get the work moving!
Well, on Saturday we saw the baptism of Flora!!! It was amazing, she was so happy and we had such great support from the ward members. Flora has a five-month old baby girl who loves to cry at the wrong moments but it was still a very beautiful service. She was confirmed on Sunday and I was able to go and say goodbye to her yesterday! (I have lots of pictures to send so be ready) I said goodbye to most of the members I was wanting to say goodbye to and I could just feel so much love from them. Our recent convert Santi and his wife Wanda were definitely hard to say goodbye to. But we were able to do a niche de hogar (family home evening) with them last night and our investigator Nestor and we learned how to make Venezuelan arrepas (Venezuelan Bread)! Santi is honestly the greatest member missionary I have ever seen and he was baptized 2 weeks ago! 
I loved being able to talk to you all on Sunday, it's so crazy to think we were all in different parts of the world but we were all still able to see and talk to each other at the same time. Oh I love technology ;).
Love you all so much! 
Hermana Bangerter 

All these pictures are of Katie saying goodbye to people in Barcelona