Week 93: Fun Finding

In zone conference last transfer, we received some great instruction from our mission president, President Pack. He talked a lot about speaking to people in a more natural way instead of just saying "Hey we're missionaries! We have a message!" We discussed fun finding activities that we can do to have conversations with people. Like go
to an ice cream place and try the flavors and get to know the employees, or go to a park and find a family and ask if they want to throw a frisbee around. Elder Goodman and I have been thinking of creative ways to start up normal conversations with people, and we had the idea of walking inside every suit place we see to ask about their
ties. There are suit places EVERYWHERE here because Spanish fashion is boppin. And we've been having some cool experiences doing it! We always walk in and introduce ourselves and such, and then tell them we're interested in ties. So they show us their ties and we look and stuff and then the employees ALWAYS ask us the reason we wear ties every day, which perfectly transitions the conversation into who we are and what we do and why we do it. We've been seeing some miracles with this strategy haha. On Saturday, we were on our way to an appointment really far away and we arrived like 10 minutes early, and there was a conveniently located suit store right next door. So we walked in and the lady greeted us and we started talking neckwear. And man this place had some groovy honey snatchers. Polka dots, stripes, checkered, paisley.... I kid you not, they even had holographic. Anyway, we got talking to this woman Paula and she was super friendly! She asked about what we do as missionaries and such, so we got talking. We had a real nice conversation! We talked about Jesus Christ and the atonement, and we invited her to hear more and she said we're welcome to pass by the store any time when it's not too busy and we can talk. So that was a really cool teaching experience we ran in to! She even gave me 20% off the purple paisley. And now I'm out rockin this new accessory without shame. Moral of the story: Teaching the gospel results in blessings, which may or may not include discounted trendy Spanish neckwear.

When I was in Tenerife, a member taught me a really cool card trick that's super easy. So I bought a deck of cards here and started showing it to members and the youth. But then I had the idea of doing it in proselyting to see what happens. So one day this week, we were out contacting in the street when we passed by a huge park that's
always full of youth playing futbol, etc. Actually, there's parks everywhere here in Gijón. They're like every 5 minutes walking. There are soooo many. Anyway, we saw a huge group of kids like 15-16 years old I would guess and so I had the idea of asking them if they wanted to see a card trick. We walked over to them and started talking and they said yes. So they called over all their friends to come watch, so there was like probably 15 kids. I did the trick and they were totally amazed. I trolled them good. Mage Hendrix leveled up in wizardry that day. We talked to them about our English classes and they seemed really interested! Hopefully they come this week! But yeah it was a really successful contacting attempt! I was really surprised how well it went. I actually tried it again last night. We were on our way back to our piso and we still had like 5 minutes before we had to be inside, so we were just talking to the people in the streets when we ran into another park. There was a table with a few youth sitting
down. I approached them and asked if I could show them a card trick. Once again, minds were blown. I earned a milestone with this one. We invited them to come to English classes they all gave us their numbers. So that was a cool miracle! This card trick thing is working really well! I've only tried in the streets those two times, and both of them had some great results! One more and I'll master wizardry. We might have to fill the font soon...

Anyway, it's been a great week for finding new people. I'm really enjoying these ideas that we've put into practice. It's so true though that if we start a conversation in more creative and natural way instead of just saying hello we're missionaries, we'll find people. And those people will want to hear the gospel!

Hope you all have a great week, and remember that sharing the gospel is fun! So do it! I know that living the gospel brings such great blessings. Keep on! Until next week!

Elder Hendrix