August 14, 2017 ~ Transfer 9 Week 3

Hi all!

This week was super busy and went by really fast but at the same time, last Monday seems like a month ago. Last Monday we went to the Tower of Hercules, apparently the oldest light house in the world...I didn't actually know that at the time so I thought it was cool and all but now I understand why there was a long line to go and see it hahaha. Perspective changes everything.

Tuesday we had a zone conference or a large missionary training meeting. It went really well. I enjoyed it a lot. We focus on making realistic goals and focused a bit on the statistics of the work in our mission (for every 26 people we meet with 1 person gets baptized). Pretty interesting. I really enjoyed the conference and of course the great American meal we had prepared by some senior missionaries serving in A Coruña (the Bitton's). They made some really really good home made bread and made sandwiches out of it with a pasta salad on the side. And then strawberry shortcake for dessert. Probably sounds like nothing out of the ordinary but it was amazingly good. Also that night we find two more people to teach in only an hour of time that we had to talk to people. One of them is a man who right now is homeless due to a bad situation with his family and so he's living on the street for a week. He's taking it pretty optimistically which is good.

On Tuesday night someone brought us a ton of extra food that they didn't need and so on Wednesday we went to look for the homeless man. We called him and he didnt pick up. And so we thought...well, I guess we will find out what happened later. That same morning we saw a old man who was having trouble getting a stroller over the sidewalk and so we tried to help him but got there too late. Oh well. But then we saw the homeless man and we were super surprised! And so we went home and got the food to bring to him. It was a miracle that we found him. And this week we actually have been doing a lot of service. We found a couple of coins on the ground and so we bought some crackers to give to the homeless people. It feels great to serve them. You can see the difference between those who really need it or don't - gratitude is more than just words. And I can't explain everything we did to help people out this week but we served a lot of different people.

We also had a lesson with Isidoro who is preparing to be baptized on August 26. We went to his home and cut his hair and had a great lesson. And this past Sunday we had 4 investagators in church! It was a miracle. And a less active member even brought her husband who isnt a member, as well as some other less active families coming back. It was so great to see all the changes that happened this week.

I just want to share a quick story from the life of Jesus...so lately we have been reading the 4 gospels in the new testament as a mission and I was reading about when John the Baptist was killed. Jesus went off to be alone and probably to mourn the death of his cousin and friend but a crowd followed him out of the city. I put myself in his shoes...if this happened to me, what would I have done? I just want to be alone and a crowd is following me. I probably would have been pretty angry and frustrated. But here is what Christ does:

"Matthew 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick."

What does Jesus do? He serves the people! He asks them to bring their sick to him to be healed. What does this tell us about what we should do when we are sad or "mourning"? To serve! How amazing is that. It doesn't seem logical to focus on helping others to feel better when you don't feel happy. But when you turn outward you are happier as you bring smiles to other people.

I hope you have a great week! Try serving someone and I promise that as you do a self-less act of service you will be given more strength to confront your trials. =) 

Photos:

1)the cool Roman wall in Lugo. I finally got some pictures.

2)and the waves in A Coruña.

Elder Openshaw

Spain Madrid Mission
Calle Fuerteventura 4, 2, Oficina 8B
28703 San Sebastián de los Reyes
Madrid, España