Grant Mission

Okay everyone. This week has been a blast! On Tuesday night, right after our p-day ended, Elder Casablanca and I decided to knock as many houses without any record there as possible. We ended the last hour of that night with 5 finds and 5 lessons! It was sweet to see the miracles that come from being diligent and not going home early. Now, only time will tell how well they will progress.  A miracle I saw on Sunday, just before everyone showed up for church, was actually amazing! A member we had talked to a few times around an apartment complex called me over. He said that he had prayed to know what he was supposed to do or how he could better serve the Lord and got the answer to "be a missionary". He asked me how he could be a missionary right now and I said that we could get him some pamphlets to pass out to the people he talks to. It might not seem like much but that changed my whole day! Also on Sunday, one of the members of the bishopric in one of our wards gave ...

Okay, so, this has been a weird week. We started it off with some good exchanges and got some sweet finds but Wednesday night there was a fire on the reservation just north of us! The smoke was coming over the mountains and made the moon red! We talked to inactive members that said it could come over the mountains and burn up Pocatello Creek. that was scary to know... It didn't end up doing that which was really good. It was an interesting day. It smelled like smoke for 3 days straight. Some missionaries took cool photos of it. This last exchange day we had some miracles! I went to the Chubbuck 2 area and we talked to this one lady who has had some deaths in her family pretty recently. Most notably her husband. He was murdered in the Chubbuck extended stay and she was looking for help. She had us over and we taught her the plan of salvation and the Gospel and then put her on date! She was taking notes and definitely felt the spirit! About 3 hours later she called us and asked us to...

This week has been fun and I have started to do something throughout my day. I have started to look for miracles daily and boy have they come. Being in the right place at the right time, knocking one more door before a zone meeting and a call out of the blue that ends up in a find and even talking to some people that immediately have potential for baptism.  I try to recognize these miracles and thank Heavenly Father for them. And each time I do that, I am happier and have a better outlook on the day. Another thing I have found is the word "Fear". Why fear? What has made this word stand out this week? In 2 Timothy 1:7 it says "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." The fear we feel is never from God. Before every miracle, I always feel fear. Every time. That is Satan trying to make me afraid and then leave those people alone because it might be a little awkward. Missionary work IS awkward! That's just the tr...

Okay, everyone. This has been the longest week of my Mission so far. And the most stressful. We had transfer news come out on Wednesday at 11. It said I was going to whitewash an area with an Elder I already know over in Pocatello. That's easy enough right? No, it wasn't. We go to the transfer site and the first thing I hear is that things might've been shifted around and that I might not be going with that Elder. We Head over to Burley and swap stuff around and head over to Pocatello soon after that. When we get there however, the Mission President pulled me aside and said that my companion was going to get here the next day. He also told me who it was. I am going with one of the definitely not good missionaries out here. Elder Casablanca. He doesn't work, doesn't teach, and much less studies. And I'm whitewashing with him. The reason he wasn't there was because the transfer news said he was going over to Twin Falls and so that's where he went.  I got t...

Okay, this has been a really busy week, if you couldn't tell from the title. We have had a lot of things planned fall through and a lot of unplanned things happen. It all started Wednesday.... we had District Council and my companion had this amazing idea to make breakfast burritos there. Now, the first thing that went wrong was the idea I had to pour the hot bacon grease into a plastic cup. Now, if I had put any more thought into it, I would've realized that it was a BAD idea to do that. My companion kept saying it would melt but I said "Noooooo.... it won't melt." But, lo and behold, it melted. Thankfully I took the smallest bit of advice and did it over the trash. So! Everyone! Learn from my mistake and get 2 plastic cups inside each other not just one!  We had a lesson with some people that we are teaching and they said they would pray about our message and baptism as well! They also said they would come to the Ward Party on Saturday but some things happened t...

So! This has been a hectic week! It's been a lot of ups but being up for so long wears the body and mind out! I am TIRED and still look forward to this next week! The first miracle is that we had another baptism! He has been learning for a while and called up the Bishop last Tuesday and said he wanted to get baptized that weekend! The Bishop called us really quickly in the middle of a Nerf war and gave us the miraculous news! We rushed to get the interview done and then got him baptized at 9 on Saturday. No picture because of how fast it was. I also got to baptize him! It was amazing! The second miracle happened on exchanges yesterday. We had just knocked the first person of the day and were walking back to the car when I said we should knock the street we were on. And the very first house let us share a message and accepted a Book of Mormon and the trio who are in the area are going back Wednesday to teach him more!  The bug was super cool! Elder Beelek, the exchange companion fou...

That's the question a lot of our friends have asked this week. Am I ready for baptism? They struggle to understand when they can and are able to get baptized.  We as missionaries only have so much to teach. Some think they have to know everything in order to get baptized. This can be stressful for us because we know they are ready and that they know it all but can't force them into baptism. It is all we can do sometimes to help them see that and promise blessings.  There was a girl we were talking with yesterday on exchanges who had that same problem. My exchange companion, and trainer, Elder Klomp talked to her and by the end of us getting to know her a bit and teaching and talking she set her own date! It was really special. Now I just hope I'm here long enough to see it happen!  Sometimes that's how we all are with a lot of things. We think we won't be ready or that we don't know enough but God does. He puts us in places and circumstances that we might think ...