Week 73 194 Days Left

Let me just say I'm not missing home.  I just have a companion who finishes the mission in 2 transfers and he told me how many days I have left hahaha.  He is missing home a bit.

Hey it's been a while since I've written.  I'm still here in Santiago de Compostela and we're doing great! I love the city and the people here.  It's getting a little rainy but I like it more than the heat. 

I have a different companion from before. His name is Elder Beher, he's also from California but from San Diego. We met each other the first time when I served in Elche and now were here together in Santiago.

We have been putting in good work with our friends and we've seen some great progress from them but we're struggling to find the best way to find new people to teach. The mission is full of great tools to help us find people but we struggle to find where to put our focus so we can find new people. Always pray for the missionaries to find people, it helps a lot. But don't forget and missionaries are full time teachers and members are full time finders, a prayer with the desire to act is always answered by God.

We have a good friend Cecilia who's progressing a lot.  She is just looking for an answer to her prayers to know if what we teach is true. If you have any scriptures or good talks you think we could share with her let me know:) 

Also we have a friend named Jonay who's from the Canary Islands who has been progressing a lot as well. We had a lesson recently with him and we prayed super hard that he could feel the spirit in the lesson. We decided to teach the plan of salvation and for some reason we could not get the words out.  We just had an off lesson but it all changed when we got to the last part of the plan and the part where we explained families can be eternal in the celestial kingdom. When we shared this part the spirit entered into the room like I had never felt it before, like you could touch it and we know Jonay felt it from the tears in his face. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. We hope to be able to set a baptismal date with him soon. 

Besides that we've been working well here in Santiago and enjoying the mission. This week we have zone conference and a few more visits. The work continues strong here! I'll add some pics from some adventures of my time here in my area:). 

Have a great week!!

Below are Some pictures of my area in Santiago, my companion and I, and pics of Spanish tortilla I'm learning to make!

Week 69 Galician Octopus

So its been a while since I've filled you in on the mission so I'll sum it up the best I can!

We have been seeing lots of miracles actually and seeing a lot of success with our friends which is fantastic! It's been a while since I've taught friends that have progressed so well!

1. We have Cecilia.  I talked about her a bit in my last email.  She's my age from Spain and has been studying with the missionaries for about a month now. We just finished teaching her lesson 4 and we only have 2 more lessons to teach her. She has now come to church twice now and she's been progressing super well and loving the lessons. She's been listening and listening to us and well she still says she doesn't have an answer to know if the church is true but really with all the desires to learn and good feelings she has when she attends church she basically already has her answer. We mentioned baptism a little in the last lesson and surprisingly she took it very well.  So we're being patient with her and letting her take her time but she look to be a golden friend. 

2. We received a reference from some elders in Sweden a few days ago.  Her names is Victoria and she's our age as well and she recently moved here to Santiago. She has been studying with the elders for 6 weeks now and has been to church many times. She's super fun and knows a lot about the church already, She's always curious to learn more and she even came to church this last week. We've met up once already and she looks to have lots of potential as well. 

3. We have like 3 other people we're teaching who are named Ana, Jorge, and Martin. We still need to meet with them a little more. Cecilia and Victoria are our most progressing friends at the moment.

Nothing too crazy has happened besides that.  My toilet in the apartment decided to start leaking so a plumber will come soon to fix that #elderspisos

A week ago I tried Galician octopus for the first time.  Not something I would eat all the time but hey, while in Spain gotta enjoy the Spanish culture.

Today we went on a hike.  We didn't have to go to A Coruña for preparation day (its the first time I've stayed in Santiago on free day for 3 weeks) and so we went on a hike and got a sweet view of the city. 

Oh yeah so I forget to say how we found Victoria hahaha, it was an interesting story. In the reference we received there was only an address but without an apartment number (in Spain 90% of the population lives in apartments) and we didn't have a phone number or anything. So we got to her house and rang every doorbell and well we didn't find her. So we left a pass along card with her name with a question mark on the top on the doorstep and hoped she would get it. A few hours later she sent us a message saying hi and that she got our card hahaha. It was a huge miracle because we left the card on the door to the entrance of the building so anything could have happened to the card but the Lord protected it and it got to Victoria

But yeah everything is going super well here, we have some good friends. Surprisingly we have a very similar group of friends: Ana, Cecilia, Victoria are all college student, women, who are our age, and that speak English fluently so we have had a lot of fun haha.  It's the first time in my mission where I give more lessons in English than Spanish. 

That's all that is happening here in Santiago! Talk to you all later!

Elder Keith