Molecules

Don't have a ton of motivation to think of something clever that goes along with the week, so went with Molecules, probably my favorite song by Atlas Genius. It's been a really great, but exhausting first week here in Barrio 1 (Madrid 1st Ward). I just so happened to arrive during the coldest week of the season so far. Those of you that know me know that I hate the cold. On the bright side, I can now say with absolute confidence that it's colder than Africa since I was on the African continent in the Canaries a week ago. It's warmed up a little here the last couple of days, so I'm managing a little better now.

THE AREA

It's been a blast and honestly a little bit of an adjustment so far. I'll be honest, it's really nice being able to focus solely on missionary work which we couldn't really do in La Palma. This is the first time in quite a while that I've been in an area where street-contacting is effective so I'm pumped about that. It's taken me a little bit to get back into the groove of working in a big city. We don't have a lot of investigators at the moment, but I can see that turning around soon. We've been in finding-mode this week. We've got like 4 lessons set up with potential investigators next week including a guy from Tenerife that we met on the street. I thought that was pretty neat since I had never met a Canarian here in the Peninsula before. One of our current investigators is named Ivan. We got him on a baptismal date for about two months in advance this last Thursday, but I'm not sure how solid that is since my companion tells me he's pretty flojo. They've been working with him for over a month and he hasn't come to church yet. We had a really spiritual lesson with him this week though and he says he feels really good when he reads the Book of Mormon. 

My new comp Elder Parkinson and I are here in B1 with one other companionship of Elders and a trio of Hermanas - 7 missionaries total in the ward. We all sat down earlier this week and made a plan to help strengthen the members. The bishop told us that there are a lot of members who come every week but don't have testimonies, so that's one of our focuses at the moment. We've planned out weekly ward activities that emphasize the content in the missionary lessons in an effort to strengthen their testimonies.

That's about it for now. Pretty standard week as far as missionary work goes. Hope you guys are all doing well back over yonder. L8r sk8rs.

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner

Fotos:

1-3. We went to a little Star Wars museum today