January 22, 2018 ~ Transfer 13 Week 2

Hi all!

This week was a long but busy week.

Tuesday:
This morning we went on a search to find opportunities to do service. It is so hard to do service here in Spain at organizations because they believe that if you are doing volunteer work you are taking away someone's job. It's a weird mentality but that's part of why it's so hard. So after going to various places to try to do service we got turned away many times and we are still left with what we started with - desires to help and serve but no organization here that wants/needs help. It can be a little frustrating.

We tried a bunch of new things this week. For example, we walked into random schools and we gave them English class posters to put up. It was a LOT easier than I thought it would be. It was actually super normal. We walked in and we asked if we could put some free English class signs up and they said of course! So we actually did it in quite a few schools and even the library. It was pretty cool. And there was one point where we were speaking in English in the street up to one of the bilingual schools and a teacher walked out and asked us where we were from. And she basically took care of the English posters and took charge of the advertising for us (because they is her job in her language department).  So that was super cool too. She took a few posters and a bunch of English class cards too. And there was also a mall across the street where we put up a poster there too.

Thursday: We had District meeting. We talked about the Book of Mormon, how to find by using questions of the soul and talk about the Book of Mormon more. The Book of Mormon is our most powerful tool as missionaries because it's the keystone of religion. Basically if the Book of Mormon is true, it means it really was translated by a prophet and it means that Heavenly Father guides his children by prophets as in the olden days. And today on intercambios we literally taught the restoration probably like 10x. It was a ton. But people actually listened and were willing to talk which I'm not used to. I even got to use some Russian (which I still remember from the MTC) when we found a Russian man who has only been here a few months. That was fun. And he understood me haha. I asked how he was in Russian and he replied good and that was it haha. We talked with a ton of people today. I thought I was going to dream about talking to people about the restoration but it didn't happen haha.

(If you don't realize, I've skipped a few days just because I've lost track of the days and that they weren't all that interesting either haha. Some days on the mission are just very normal. A lot of trying tk find new people to teach.)

And then Sunday (yesterday) was my birthday so that was fun. No chicken feet this time haha. And we ate some really good food with the members.

Something that I learned from my studies this week is about humility. Humility is (in one definition) the condition of being meek and teachable.

Other things that it is:
1) It is submitting yourself to the will of the Lord
2) ‎ giving Heavenly Father the honour for your accomplishments
3) ‎ giving thanks for your blessings
4) ‎recognizing complete dependence upon Heavenly Father's help
5) ‎trusting in God's servants - church leaders, the prophet, priesthood leaders and following their counsel
6) ‎praying for revelation and seeking His guidance

Somethings it isn't (AKA "Pride"):
1)Trusting in me (Elder Openshaw) more than in Heavenly Father
2)putting the things of the world (ie. Phone, tv, video games, sports, etc) before the things of God (prayer, scripture study, etc)

And some scriptures to add about being humble:
Matt 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Eter 12:27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

So...basically rely on the Lord and turn to Him and He will lead you. You are a child of God and He wants to hear from YOU. I know that He is in the details of our lives and that He answers our prayers. If you ask specifically, you get a more specific answer, if you ask generally, you get a general answer. I know that He loves you and knows of your worth. He will guide you and help you as you turn to Him.

Well I hope everyone had a great week! Have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Openshaw