The Forgiveness Plea: FORGIVE ME!!!

Hi friends!!!

I'm so sorry for not sending my previous email on time, I hope this one makes it on time though. Either way, you guys will likely be recieving two emails in the same week. I'm trying my hardest to catch up, but somehow I am feeling more busy than before! 

Busy seems to be a little bit different than what I was expecting. I was imagining busy to be missionary duties, planning lessons, talking with people, etc. Busy seems to actually be cleaning, doing laundry, shopping, writing in journal, writing emails, etc. Yes, I do all of those things in a day, but the missionary duty part is something we plan for and set time aside every day to do, the other stuff we have to fit in in free time, and that is what makes me busy.

Monday - Sept 18th

In my previous email, I wrote into today in pretty good detail because I finished the email in the evening. I will go over this day again very quickly, bullet point style.

 - Washed bed sheets today, first time in my mission

 - Got a haircut today, first time in my mission

 - Watched a horse be branded, also the first time in my mission (but maybe the only time)

 - Didn't finish my email on time, first time in my mission

I did a lot of firsts today, which is pretty cool. Sadly though, they won't be firsts anymore, so I guess my mission will get a little bit more boring. I'm just joking, every single day is it's own adventure.

Tuesday - Sept 19th

Today is my sister's birthday! Happy birthday Katherine!!! Sadly, this is the first birthday I've missed while on my mission, and I have more to come, but I know I'll try to make it all up after my mission with birthday celebrations.

Another first for today - Harvesting Corn (Desgrañando maíz). Harvesting Beans always leave my hands wet, because beans kinda dissolve into mush when they go bad, but we need to open every bean sack to harvest any and every good bean. In corn harvesting, your hands don't get too wet, but your hands starting hurting bad after enough harvesting. My fingers were purple after harvesting the corn because it takes so much energy to get each kernal off the stem.

I've now been in Honduras for just over a month, and it seems like easy mode was turned off. We planned our day, and our first five appointments fell through in the first 30 minutes of work. What do you do when your plan doesn't work? Pray and make a new plan. That's what we did, and we decided to switch from focusing our work in Mocho Arriba and Abajo to working in San Juan and Las Vegas. We had much more success there.  

In San Juan we taught Victor Manuel, which will hopefully be baptized soon. Because the date we set with him is on Saturday, we very quickly went through all of lesson two and lesson four with him to remind him of everything. We also gave two of his family members priesthood blessings.

Wednesday - Sept 20th

We taught 2 lessons today, though we tried to teach many more. We taught lessons with our two 'Grandmothers' - Ana Salgado and Cristina Cruz. I was assigned to teach lessons to them, so I planned stuff to teach them, but when the time came to it, we taught completely different things. I'm a little sad my plans didn't work out, but I still participated in the lessons, so it still works out.

Tracting sessions were fruitless, ward planning sessions were fun. Today ended up being a good day because I was on a 'spiritual high' all day. Having that spiritual strength makes me happier and more confident, regardless of circumstances. I'm sad I can't be in this state every day, but I will relish the days like this.

I was in front of the chapel with the other missionaries, when a member I never met before came up. We chatted a bit, and he spoke in English with me! He speaks really good English, and he gave me a hype speech on missionary work which was cool. I love meeting loving members like this, and I can't wait to meet each and every one of them in every area I visit.

Thursday - Sept 21st

Today is district council day. I've only been around for a month, but I already dread district council because I don't like the practices we do (they help, but they aren't fun to do). Something I'm going to try to focus on more is how I get to be with my friends during district council, not that I have to do a practice with a time limit.

After this district council, we had ice cream. I've been trying different ice creams every time, and today I had Bubble Gum and Sherbet ice cream. I usually stick to Chocolate, Mint, and Oreo, but I decided to go wild today

We went to meet with Francisco Mateo, but he wasn't there. Luckily, his mother was there, and we were able to teach her about the restoration. I had big speaking parts in that lesson, and it was very fun. I'm still very far from being able to teach well, but I'm slowly progressing each and every day.

We had two dinners today (we forgot to cancel one of our dinners until it was too late to do so). The food was amazing, but now I'm extra full. It's all worth it though because I was able to have Baleadas for one of those dinners.

Friday - Sept 22nd

Today, we had missionary splits with the Zone Leaders! Yesterday we got notice that they would be showing up, and that we would be serving in a trio. That news worried me a little bit, but it ended up being very fun!

The zone leader that joined us today is named Elder Wallace. He is from Idaho and has been serving for just a little bit more than my companion. Elder Wallace is very obedient to the rules, but also really fun to be around and seeing him interact with children and animals was pretty cool. He really has a way with the children and animals found all over the place.

Today, I spent more time teaching and participating in lessons, which has been my big goal for the week. I shared entire portions of lessons, and helped take the initiative to start/continue the lessons.

Having positive experiences like today makes me happy, and helps me to realize that I have friends and family regardless of where I go. I need to keep that in my mind for my whole life, just knowing that helps me so much to feel happiness and hope here.

Saturday - Sept 23rd

Elder Wallace is now reunited with his companion, and back in his area in our zone. He said that he hates the hills here, but loves the climate and will miss the cool temperature when he is back in his humid area.

I participated in the baptisms of 3 people today. All three of those people were people the other group in my district found and taught, but because I took part in their baptisms, I think I can count them as my own baptisms (just a little bit). The way I helped out with their baptisms is that I played the piano for their baptisms. I played Prelude, Postlude, the Opening and Closing hymns, and a bunch of intermediate hymns while we were waiting for the newly baptized youth to return from the bathroom after the ordinance took place. It was a lot more piano than I was expecting, and I came across the problem that was that many people don't really know the hymns as well as people do in Utah. I was playing songs and the people were struggling to follow along, and I felt bad because I didn't know how to tweak the hymns to help them. 

Not only were people unfamiliar with some of the hymns (Such as: Families can be together forever), but the sheet music is different for a bunch of songs, adding or subtracting notes to account for the difference of syllables in Spanish. Some songs in the Spanish hymnbook are much more difficult than the English ones.

A few days ago a pretty crazy storm roled by (at night, thankfully) but the storm caused a minor landslide that blocked the road from El Mochito to Las Vegas. Today, that road was closed for cleaning and repairs, but that meant that once we managed to get to Las Vegas to drop off Elder Wallace, we couldn't go back. While we waited for traffic to clear up, and a path between the two cities to open up, we ate Baleadas and did our daily planning. After a while, we decided to just walk home, and we ended up walking right past the heavy machinery being used to clear the road. For any of you construction enthusiasts, they used CAT (Caterpillar, I'm not sure) brand heavy machinery to do their work. 

Out of all the times we walked from Las Vegas to Mocho Arriba, I believe that this was my first time actually walking from the chapel to our home. It is a killer walk, not fun at all.

Today we met up with Francisco Mateo, and discovered that he was feeling awkward about his baptism. We gave him words of comfort and invited him to go to God to help find confidence in baptism. He took coffee in the morning, and a prerequisite for a baptism is to not take any coffee for at least a week before the baptism, so we pushed back the baptism date we set to allow him to gain a testimony of what we have taught, and to allow him to follow the Word of Wisdom. The spirit was really strong during this meeting, and I hope that he will be ready to do HIS baptism, HIS covenant with God, walk on HIS path to eternal life. Our goal is to try to encourage him to be making the decision of baptism 100% of himself, that he can have his own testimony of the Gospel, and not just a knowledge of what we know is true.

Sunday - Sept 24th

For some reason, I am more tired on Sunday. Maybe it has something to do with sacrament meeting, and the peace that comes from partaking of the sacrament. Regardless of the drowsiness that comes from the sunday services, I love participating in them.

We did a bit of service for Francisca and Martha, who live in La 21 (They name a bunch of their towns with the date they were founded. La 21 was founded Oct 21st, so that's the name of the town). The service we did for them was chopping some wood. Elder Miles is a beast with an axe, the log we were given didn't stand a chance against him. 

In return for the service we did, they taught us how to make tortillas. It sounds pretty complicated, so I will let my compaion focus on making tortillas, and I will try to cook beans to go with them.

Something we started to focus on today was teaching about the living prophet, Russell M. Nelson. With General Conference coming up next weekend, I'm really excited for the opportunity to listen to the prophet and hear his advice for all of us for today. I've been reading many past General Conference talks, and they are so amazing, I'm so excited to get more to study and learn from. For all of you reading this, I invite you to prepare for this next weekend by studying the words of today's prophet, and I invite you to really listen to at least one session of General Conference.

For those who don't know how to listen to general conference, the sessions are on Saturday from 10am-12pm, 2pm-4pm, and 6pm-8pm and on Sunday from 10am-12pm and 2pm-4pm. You can listen to and watch general conference on Youtube, the Gospel Library app, and many more.

Monday - Sept 25th

We had planned a celebration in San Pedro Sula for completing our baptism goals for the month (One baptism from each companionship for the month). This activity has been moved to next week, so I've been busying myself with other things today.

One of those things I've busied myself with is a hike up the nearby Santa Barbara mountain. Yesterday we met with two active members - Nelson and Freddy to plan this activity, and we carried it out today. It was a long hike, and we did it as a district, with two members as well. We hiked up the mountain for an hour and a half before our guide admitted that he was lost. We were trying to reach a clearing with a great view of Mocho Arriba, Las Vegas, and Jehova Lake, but we ended up settling with a small but nice clearing in the trees that gave us a good view of it all. 

After hiking up, we backtracked to the bottom and got Baleadas in Las Vegas. I am very quickly coming to love Baleadas, and I'm sad they don't exist in the United States. If you want to find one, then you will need to search hard to find a Honduran restaurant, or a Honduran neighbor to serve you authentic Baleadas.

That hike has left me very dirty, and with a few more bug bites than I had before. Funnily enough, today was the first day I put on bug spray. I don't have very much bug spray, and there are not very many bugs here, so I haven't needed it before now.

After this hike and lunch, we went shopping and stopped by the chapel to steal a little bit of wifi. I love downloading church and BYU talks to listen to. I really value the wisdom I recieve from these talks, and I will likely go through over 1000 talks by the end of my mission if I continue at my current pace.

Spanish Words of the Week

Anteayer y Pasadomañana

I'm going to try to make a sort of graph so you can understand the relationship between these words and days in relation to today.

Anteayer - The day before yesterday

Ayer - Yesterday

Hoy - Today

Mañana - Tomorrow

Pasadomañana - The day after tomorrow

In English, we don't have a word for Anteayer or Pasadomañana, so we have to use a sentence to describe it. These words are very common and very useful, and I am surprised English translations don't exist.

Additionally, the Ante(before) or Pasado(After) prefix can be applied to week, month, or year which makes these words even more useful.

Scripture of the Week

1 Nephi 22:2 - "And I, Nephi, said unto them: Behold they were manifest unto the prophet by the voice of the Spirit; for by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets, which shall come upon the children of men according to the flesh."

I'm going to be using this scripture a lot this week to talk about the prophet and invite people to Hear Him.

This week was very fun, and not as hard as last week. Sadly, each week, like each day is it's own adventure and I cannot ensure that each day will be amazing. I'll just have to do the best to try my best every day, and not linger on past days, except to learn from them. I'm excited for this next week, because we have a baptism planned, and General Conference. Additionally, my mom's birthday is tomorrow, and I will be able to call her and talk for 15 minutes! I'm excited for the immediate future, and I'm going to try to linger on that, because in just a few weeks I will lose my 'Father' (my trainer) and I will have to learn to interact with a new missionary, and eventually, I will need to learn to navigate a new area with it's own challenges.

Slowly my missionary abilities are developing, and I'm glad I'm seeing the future as bright. I hope I can keep this light in my life for my whole life, but for now I'll need to focus on one day at a time.

Check out my photos! https://photos.app.goo.gl/g2QAHn4xdMnPx4JT8

Don't forget you can email me for any reason. I won't bite! mgrant@missionary.com or reply to me here on this email.

Thanks for your patience, I hope it payed off!!!

I may not send out an email next week because of my zone's celebrations next P-day, but I'll try my best to keep up. Either way, I'm trying my best to keep up and catch up when necessary with the going-on's in my life.

Talk to you next time!

 - Élder Grant