March 13, 2018 ~ Transfer 14, Week 3

Hi everybody!

This week has been quite interesting! I'm going to give a day by day account but just the highlights:

Monday:
Then we went contacting and I talked to a former investigator at a bar waiting outside for someone and he eventually said "hey! I have a friend that's one of you guys". And pulled out the contact on his phone that is the WhatsApp picture of Elder Jones (Michael, the one I'm with) and elder Packham. And he doesn't recognize elder Jones as the one in the picture hahahaha. It was pretty funny.

Tuesday:skip a day - fairly normal day.

Wednesday:
When talking with people in the street, we stopped a guy named Enrique who just moved here from Cuba - 27 days ago. He's a pretty cool guy with a lot of time on his hands right now. Unfortunately he's also pretty flojo (lazy/hard to get a hold of).

Then we passed by a less active family we have been trying to get a lesson with for months. They often tell us tell are home and a certain time and they aren't home. So I asked for their general schedule and we passed by at a time they were likely to be home. They didn't answer the door so we just made a few calls to set up some lessons. And as we were making the calls I saw the father, Jose step out of the house towards the car hahaha. So we go back up and pretend to ring again. And Jose stops backing up the car although he had started to at first. But I think he saw us and stopped. Then we wait for an awkward amount of time and no one comes to the door and he doesn't continue backing up. So we go down the hill again and we turn around and the mom walks right out! And she waves to my companion hahaha. And they made a get-away in the van...it was pretty funny but kind of frustrating at the same time haha.

Thursday:
We had some interesting conversations in a small town called Camponaraya. We talked to a lady who offered to let me to use her scythe if we wanted to help her with her garden haha. I asked her what it was called in Spanish. It was huge!

And there were like 3 people total we saw in the streets and so we went door knocking! And we met a cool guy named Antonio who said "no" at first from his window but then came outside because he couldn't really hear us. He asked us what we were doing here and we had a decent conversation. He started going back inside and I felt the need to stop him again so I did...And I talked about the self-reliance program (1st thing that came to mind). He's a cool guy. By the way this week my companion and I are going down to Madrid to receive a training on how to teach people to do the self-reliance program. I'm excited to be able to start teaching others about it and use it as another way of finding new people to teach. The branches here are too small to have someone called to run the self-reliance courses so basically the missionaries in the small branches will have the opportunity to be the course facilitators teaching people how to find work, start a business and a bunch of other skills.

Friday:
We went to the Rosal (the mall) and we had a miracle. We had been praying for someone who was prepared for the gospel to find them there at 12:30, in the seats where we met with Miriam, with a phone in hand. And we found someone!

At 12:25 we arrived and there were two people seated where we specified. A man on one side and a woman on the other side (there were two clusters of seats and they were separated). At 12:30 when we went over there to take a seat both had their phones out. And we sit down at the cluster of seat with the old man and he is playing on his phone and he has an oxygen tank...and he was a lot older than it seemed before. The lady was probably about 25-30 years old. And she was on the other cluster of seats. So it was going to be awkward. So I pulled out my tablet and tried to connect the Wi-Fi but it wasn't working so the thought came, ask the lady for help with the Wi-Fi. So I immediately got up and asked her about it and we started the conversation that way. And I even got to share the restoration! And she was kind of interested, she kept asking questions but it was complicated because she was working on her computer. So I got her email and we will see how that goes haha. She wouldn't take the Book of Mormon but wanted it electronically. But it was amazing how the spirit gave me the idea to ask about Wi-Fi...no other approach in that moment would have been as normal (that I could think of) nor would have gotten me out of my seat. We are going to ask about something completely different and try to transition that way. But the spirit really does guide us. And wow it was a little scary to get up but it worked out really really well and was totally worth it.

Saturday:
We had some really weird conversations this morning. One guy tried to tell us that Buddha, Jesus and Mohammad all communicated with aliens. Another treated us like aliens and not like human beings haha. They just stared at us with the "what are you" look haha.

We also went to the Bar Coherencia where every Saturday there is a group that meets to just practice speaking English. Apparently it's a group but today there were only 2 other people haha. But it was cool to be able to speak in English and actually feel like we were helping people out.

Funny moment of the day, I stepped on what I call an "Asturian water bomb" (loose pieces of sidewalk that have water the seeps underneath and which release when stepped on). So I got muddy water that splashed on my pants and shirt all the way up to my face! Haha

Sunday:
Today we had District conference in Leon (where all the church members from this geographic part of Spain get together). It was a wonderful conference. It actually went by very fast even though it was 2 two hour sessions. I learned a lot and was reminded of a lot too. And there was a lot of time to fill so at the very start President Pack warned us some missionaries would be sharing their testimonies. And I got to see the members from Oviedo! 

That was awesome!

I've learned a lot of things this week but sometimes it's difficult explaining life lessons that you learn. Something I learned this week comes from the Bible:

Romans 8:28, 31
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.
31...If God be for us, who can be against us?

Our Heavenly Father is cheering us on and wants us to succeed. Even when life is hard, even when we have trials that seem impossible to overcome, He is there and wants to hear from us. And as we trust Him and love Him all things (trials, sickness, temptations, afflictions, etc) will work together for our good. He can make our weaknesses strengths. If He be for us, who can be against us?

Have a great week!
Elder Openshaw

Pictures from last Pday in Leon