During this week were many learning experiences =) I'll start out by explaining a funny one first:
Tuesday I was making calls to set up lessons for the week. Elder Hale and I talked about calling a future investigator named Snider. Then we talked about calling a member named Oswaldo and setting up a lesson with their friend named Marina. And so I called, I had already put a number in the phone and I thought it was Oswaldo's. A woman answered the phone (who I thought was Oswaldo's wife) and I talked about setting up a lesson and doing a family home evening with her and Oswaldo and inviting their friend, Marina. For some reason she was super confused. And then she asked me to call her back in an hour and to my surprise I hung up the phone and saw that I had called Snider! Thankfully Snider picked up when we called back within an hour =) We have a lesson with her tomorrow. =) We died laughing after I realized what I did.
Food experiences: I tried a fruit called Kaki and it was okay. It is like a mix between on Apple and a pear. We also ate with members and went up to Hermana Uri's house in the mountains. It is a super cool place. They cooked meat over an open fire and it was sooo good, Ricardo (the dad) called the steak "caballo" (horse) and we fell for his joke at least for a little bit =) until we actually tried it.
In the work: we have an investigator named Luis from Columbia. He's great. We asked him to read the introduction to the book of Mormon and he read the intro and a little more. I think that's the first time anyone as read something without me having to follow up a ton. It was such a great feeling to know he was doing it for himself and to strength his relationship with God and not just because we asked him to do it.
We had a zone conference in León this past week. It was a little crazy having with 10 elders in the same apartment but we made it work =)
The zone conference was amazing =) We talked about the Atonement and how it's okay to still be learning about the Atonement while we are teaching it. We also talked about making firm commitments and contacting more youth. I have been timid contacting youth sometimes because there are a lot of them and I don't want to rejection from people my age. But when I actually faced the excuses I make and combated them by realizing how open youth are to the Gospel and how much it would help them at this important time in their lives...I've decided I will do better =) We talked about how the youth can use Facebook to share favorite mormon messages with their friends and how they can really help their friends out =) I think it will be great working more with the youth, I understand youth better than others because I am one.
I want to share my feelings of the Atonement. I know that we can be forgiven and feel clean before God. It is difficult to just continue life with feelings of dread and guilt from things we did that were not pleasing to God. But we can be cleansed through the wonderful gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It's really sad when talking with people about it Atonement and they don't believe it can work for them. But it can work for all of us. God knows each of us individually, personally.
It's been amazing to see the spirit working in my life. There have been some hard days and some great days. This week I had a hard day and God gave me exactly what I needed. God works in His own time and in His own ways. We just have to be patient and like for the answers to our prayers, praying that we will recognize them. I know God answers my prayers and that He will answer yours.
Have a great week!
Elder Openshaw
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