¡Hola!
A ton has happened this past week.
Last P-day we went bowling with some members and that was quite fun, I wrote my emails that whole time and tried to send them before running out of time, it was a little rushed =)
Tuesday, we went to a pueblo called Mieres and took the bus 30 mins South to get there. We tried so many ways to find people and we learned a ton. We knocked doors in the mountains, ring bells to the pisos only to have angry old people wonder what we were doing, contacting in the street and contacting in the park around the center of the small town. We gave out 5 Libros de Mormon (usually give 2 ish in a day but we are running out quick). And we found some amazing people.
The people in Mieres are more friendly. when we say hi in the street they say hi and smile back (in Oviedo, it's a little different, more little Boston where they aren't quite as friendly in the streets until you get to know them).
My favorite experience was finding a Chinese family in the mountains. The security system was a little intimidating but I said what the heck and rang the bell =) And we are going to teach their whole family =) we gave them the Book of Mormon and they said "my kids can read this" and asked for a Chinese one. It was really cool.
And a funny thing that happened when knocking doors in the mountains was this.... a woman was walking a horse by us and Elder Cabot mentioned how cool horses were. And she said "you don't have horses?". Hahaha it was great.
We had our weekly district meeting the next day and after we usually go to Domino's pizza. And that day we had a lesson with a woman from Dominican Republic who was baptized years ago in her youth! Her family isn't members but they are such a great family. We found her on the way home last week when Elder Cabot said, looking across the street, we need to talk to her. And she greeted us with "Elders!". It was so cool.
We also went to Mieres on Saturday after fútbol (which a lot more people showed up which was nice). We went to a members home and gave a little service and helped commit to strengthening the branch. They have a dog that is probably the biggest dog I have petted. We call him Scooby =) he is past eye level when he jumps up haha.
Sunday I taught priesthood which went well, I'm glad teaching skills stay the same when you change languages. It was only the language barrier holding me back =).
I've seen my Spanish improving so much. I can feel emotions and understand some jokes now which is nice. I understand fairly well but I don't catch the details well.
I was reading a talk from Oct. 2001 - Elder Maxwell - 7TH Commandment, A shield. I learned quite a few cool things. I enjoyed how he talks about starving the natural man in order to get rid of him. If we "give the natural man what he wants he insists on getting his ticket punched at every stop on the temptation train." I just really liked that analogy because it is exactly how Satan works on us.
I have learned this week that God works in His own time, He has eternal perspective. We don't receive blessings right away like doing something and in response expecting blessings with the speed of a text message. It doesn't work that way. He must trust us.
Also I learned this...the successful do what works, then they do what they want. The poor do what they want whenever they want. (Thinking studying for a test to get a great grade vs. Watching TV because you don't want to study, etc). We have to turn to Christ and ask for help in order to become more like Him, just putting in more work won't get us to where He wants us to be.
Have a great week!
Elder Openshaw
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