October 10, 2016

Hi all!

I left the CCM on Tuesday. It was a regular day of study and then we headed over to the stake center [church building]. President Pack and Sister Pack took us to a nice view of the city of Madrid and gave a devotional. And then we went to the mission home and had a great meal. I forgot my journal at the Piso so it's a little difficult to remember all that I have learned.

One of the Assistants to the President is from Nashua Stake [Nashua New Hampshire area] - Sam Gustafson who I remembered from youth conference 5 years ago. And I met a Sister Larson who James Gebler knows too.

I enjoyed my time in the CCM [Missionary Training Center]. It has been quite different to adjust to the field but it is good. Lots of studying and then we get to go outside proselyting which is one of my favorite things to do because I get to share what I love with other people while also helping them understand how much we care about them. We want what's best for them but they don't always know that.

A little bit about culture. Everything here is fun sized. Garbage bags, mops, etc. The water actually comes out of the faucet in the kitchen sink way better than at home in the USA. There just isn't any air bubbles in it.

I've learned that I can survive on the meals that I cook haha.

I'm in Oviedo which is a cool little city. It's one of the cleanest cities in Spain if not Europe from what I've heard.

The adjustment is a little different but good coming from the MTC. No more having people prepare all my food. 

We have one investigator that we are working with who is super cool. I had my first lesson with her. If you can imagine listening to the scriptures or the radio in Spanish and then put it on 3x or 4x that is how fast she speaks. Even the Spaniards here have a difficult time understanding her at times because she speaks so fast. That was my first lesson, and I understood next to nothing haha. With other people I understand mostly what they are saying but don't always catch the details. But I'm working through it. Our branch [church congregation] here has about 40 people who attend. I sent a picture of the sign (next week I will hopefully have more pictures of the area), the church looks like a store front and just blends right in.

The cereals taste great and there is some really good granola. I'm starting to get a little chubby from the food haha. Yesterday we ate at a members home and they cooked an Ecuador style meal (very close to the same meals we ate in Peru). I'm enjoying myself and am safe =) The pisos (apartments) are super nice and the last companionship kept ours quite clean.

Last Saturday we played soccer which was nice. Not many showed up but there were some niños who played with us (probably all around 5-9 years old). They already had better footwork and teamwork than my varsity team in Ashland, they were insanely good and some times they would kick the ball so hard I would wonder how someone that small and young could kick so hard haha.

And we teach an English class which is cool. One of the kids asked me to go over the verb "to be" and I wasn't sure if I could teach that. But I figured it out pretty quickly.

Elder Openshaw