October 2, 2017 ~ Transfer 10 Week 4

Hi everybody,

This has been a long week with a lot of changes. I'm not sure why it was so long but it was haha.

So this week we had Zone conference, a training meeting with all the missionaries here in Galicia. We talked a ton about technology and other changes. We now have Facebook and WhatsApp to use to help us do missionary work. They are just new tools to use in addition to what we already have. We also had a change in how we do our planning so now we focus on the people and their progress and not just filling hours of time. We focus on how to help them and then do it while also planning our other activities to find more people. But the people are the first focus. The changes make it tricky in the sense of training my companion because I don't know what I'm doing either haha. But it's all good.

And we got rid of our nokia (AKA the brick) and we received a new Samsung smartphone. The smartphone is super super nice (compared to what we had haha) and works really well. I'm super excited to use this new technology. And we lunch we had a potato bar made by senior missionary couple who are here in La Coruña. Super super super good. And the homemade pies they also made were amazing! It was coconut pie with vanilla filling and a wonderful homemade pie crust with cinnamon and sugar. They cook so well. I must have repeated on pie like 3 times although I was beyond full. 

We are one of 120ish missions (of about 400) to have Facebook- among the select. But we are one of 7 missions who now will be working with smartphones...how crazy. Heavenly Father has blessed me to serve in a mission that uses so much technology and that now we can use it to our advantage in the missionary work. There is a reason I'm serving here in the Spain Madrid Mission with all this technology, I just got to figure out what that reason is.

We did an intercambio while in La Coruña and thankfully this time nobody threw any eggs at us haha. It all went fairly well. =)

So part of the advantage we have now with the technology is that we can meet with people who have busy schedules or who live far away. We can do lessons over Skype or WhatsApp or Facebook with them. We tried it this week and our friend we were teaching fell asleep on us hahaha. Usually when that happens we can help him stay awake but this time it was harder because we weren't there with him. The hermanas also had a baptism here in Lugo on Friday and it went super well. I was super excited that Isidoro (our recent convert) was the one who got to baptize Jesus. He was very humbled to have the opportunity.

This week we also ran into a former investigator that we didn't have a number of. Absolutely no way of contacting him. And we found him on the street. It was super nice. Definitely a tender mercy.

General Conference was this past week and it was super awesome. Lots of great counsel and wisdom. If I didn't explain what General Conference is, it's an event that occurs every 6 months where we get to listen to the counsel from a modern day prophet and his apostles. We believe in the exact same organization that existed in the church that Jesus Christ established and so we believe that there is a prophet in today's day just like there was in the times of Noah or Moises or Abraham, etc. So that's a little bit about what it is. I learned some wonderful things. I think on of the bigger lessons I learned is that we need to focus on the basics, on the doctrine that is found in the scriptures and really be familiar with it. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and wants the best for us. I know that there is a prophet today who leads and guides us just as the prophets of old. I'm so thankful for that assurance and guidance. 

Have a great week!

Elder Openshaw

Some random pictures for the week:

One of Jesus' baptism

One of an old motorcycle on Isidoro's farm

One of all the eggs the chickens put out in 2 days, a ton