D&C 20:10-12

10 And thy brother Oliver shall continue in bearing my name before the world, and also to the church. And he shall not suppose that he can say enough in my cause; and lo, I am with him to the end.

11 In me he shall have glory, and not of himself, whether in weakness or in strength, whether in bonds or free;

12 And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men.

Monday, September 23, 2013

78€ Ankle wrap

So, you may be wondering why I would spend 78 freakin euros on an ankle wrap. It is quite the story.

On Saturday, we go and play some fútbol at the park with the kids in the ward and their friends. Things were going just fine for about an hour, until I got a little bit too excited about stealing the ball. I was reaching out with my right leg trying to snag it from him, he tipped the ball putting it just out of my reach, and I stepped on it, slipped, and my whole bodyweight landed on my --now sideways-- foot. As you could imagine, it hurt like a... a, um, something that hurts a lot. And I couldn't put any weight on it for a few minutes. On our way home we decided to stop by a farmacía, but we didn't have our money on us, so we went back to the piso to grab my wallet. We went to the farmacía, bought the ankle wrap for 8€, and I was happy, until we got back to the piso. I discovered that I didn't have the keys. We managed to get inside the building, but we couldn't get into our piso, and we couldn't break into it, because the doors of our building are missile-proof. So, we waited for 2 hours, making phone calls left and right, trying to find a spare key. The only spare key was at the apartment of the owner of our piso, and he happend to be in France that day. Just our luck. So, we called a Cerrajero (locksmith) to come and help us out. That was a good/terrible idea. He charged 70€ no matter what service he provided. We felt that was a little unfair, especially because it literally took less than 20 seconds to open our door. He was making about 12600€ per hour, for a few seconds. So, we went to the ATM, got 70€ out of my personal emergency fund (because neither of us had gotten our refunds back) and paid him.  It was quite the adventure. Luckily, that 70€ is refundable.

Anyways. 

We have had a good week, again. I can't believe I have been in Spain for nearly 2 months already. It doesn't feel like I have been gone that long. I love it here. There are little things here and there that I look at and just say, "what?", but I am quickly becoming accustomed to life in Spain. We have the most  wonderful investigators, and we have had some interesting experiences. 

For example, we have an investigator who's grandson, Edgar, fell from the 5th floor of an apartment building, survived, and is now severely incapacitated. He mostly just grunts and groans, and waves his arms around. The week before I came to Torrevieja, Elder Rodríguez and Elder Berry were teaching her family, and for the closing prayer, Her son, (Edgar's uncle) offered to say the closing prayer, and it started out nicely, but quickly turned to him shouting and doing some voodoo stuff, and placing his hands on Edgar's head. Since then, Elder Berry --now moved to some other place--, Elder Rodríguez, and I have all noticed that when you can really feel the Holy Spirit in the room, when everybody is on a spiritual high, he starts going crazy. He flails his arms, yells, and tries to grab his Grandma's face. But, the moment we change the topic, he calms down. Immediately. His eyes change as well. Normally, his eyes have a light in them, he looks genuinely happy. But for example, when I challenged Mery to baptism, she was so excited-- she could really feel the truth of what we were telling her-- Edgar lost the light in his eyes and tried to cover her mouth. Like he didn't want her to reply.   So... We think --very tentatively, and with much prayer going into this-- that Edgar might have some sort of bad spirit trying to live in him. Sounds ridiculous, but if it happened in olden days, it can happen today.

As for life here, it is going good. We have meals with members frequently, and some of them are very helpful with the missionary work. However, the ward mission leader is moving to Norway this week, and one of the really helpful families is moving to Alicante. I hope all of them have the success they seek. 

I gave a talk this last Sunday in Sacrament meeting! It went really well, during the talk, but before was a little bit crazy.  I woke up Sunday morning (accidentaly slept in 20 minutes too) @ 8:00, and realized. "Oh crap. I forgot to write my talk." So, I wrote my talk as fast as I could, showered, ate a cracker, and we left. Then, I realized it was supposed to be in Spanish, so I started translating it while I was greeting the members at the door. I finished the translation about 5 minutes before I gave the talk. It went well, and a lot of the members were impressed that I gave it all in Spanish.

Speaking of speaking in Spanish, Friday was my first Ayuna de inglés. I went the whole day without speaking English... It was unbelievably difficult, but I managed, and I got my words out pretty well.

Elder Rodríguez thinks at the rate I am learning I will be fluent by Christmas. That's not fast enough. I need to be fluent by November. Personal goal. Faster than anybody else. SEE? That's how prideful I am. Always trying to beat people, even in things that really don't need to be competitive...

Anyways, I love you all, and wish everybody good luck in their pursuits!
Os quiero mucho,
Élder Oliver

ps. Mom, I'll send that letter sometime soon. I didn't finish it last week.
pps. Family and friends, feel free to email me. Tell me about what is going on in your lives! I'd love to hear from you!





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