When Grandparent's Day And Children's Day Collide...

Hi friends!!!

Welp, I've now downloaded more general conference talks than I know what to do with. Do you guys think I'll be able to read every talk from 1995 to now during my mission?  I'm currently working my way backwards, starting from this last general conference and going back in time. At the time of writing this email I am ~40% of the way through the October 2022 general conference. At this time I'm not putting much focus into the general conference talks, instead focusing more on learning and memorizing Book of Mormon scriptures because that is the resource I will use most for teaching. During personal study I focus on the lessons and the doctrine (Preach my Gospel and the Scriptures), and outside of personal study I check out new resources and delve into topics I'm interested in. I've been listening to some BYU speeches that my companion gave me, and some of them are really wonderful to listen to. Some talks I've already listened to multiple times even though I only got them last week.  

For those of you wondering why I downloaded so many general conference talks. On Gospel Library, when you open a new document, a copy of the text is automatically downloaded so you can read it offline. If you ever start Gospel Library on a new phone, I recommend you open up each book of scripture (The Bible, The Book of Mormon, etc) for at least as long as it takes for the text to appear so you can read the scriptures offline as well as online.  The reason I downloaded so many general conference talks was that I was trying to download all of the talks given by the prophet Russell M. Nelson and the talks by Jeffrey R. Holland, but what I didn't realize was that by opening up their general conference talk to download the text, I was really downloading every talk of that particular general conference. Those two general authorities have given many talks, so I now have many general conferences downloaded. Luckily, text takes up very little storage space so my phone doesn't even notice the increase of general conference talks. If the audio for each talk was downloaded, then I would be in big trouble.

Along with the increase in general conference talks on my phone, I also have the new and improved Sacred Music app. I've had this app on my phone since I got it, but it's been all but useless to me because I could not download music. Sacred Music and Gospel Library have most of the same music, but the main differences between the two was that Gospel Library could download songs, and Sacred Music can make playlists. Sometime this past week the Sacred Music app was updated with new UI, instrumental versions of the Youth songs, and with the ability to download songs. Now I can finally use this app to listen to the music I want with ease!  The only downside with this update is that you cannot yet download a whole playlist at once, you have to download each song seperately, but I can handle that.

Anyways, that's enough geeking out over phones and church apps, I could talk about those for ages but it's now time to get into the meat of my week.

Monday - Sept 4th

Short recap for today:

 - Ate Baleadas for breakfast ... and then again for dinner

 - During breakfast the zone leaders showed up at the restaurant. We weren't expecting them, they just chose to eat at the same restaurant we were eating at

 - Talked with the fam, and I've finally been able to talk to both grandparents!

 - After P-day ended, Elder Miles and I had time for two teaching appointments. We did not plan where to go beforehand, but we were both prompted to go to the home of a family that has a ton of children. Usually it's hard to teach them because of all their energy, but today they seemed ready to listen and they all payed attention while we taught them.

Tuesday - Sept 5th

I had to wake up early today ... at about 4:30.  We woke up to catch a bus to go to San Pedro Sula, which is about 3 hours away. It was a very long drive with music that I can't even begin to describe the whole way there. In total, Elder Miles and I spent 6 hours riding in buses today.

When we got to the chapel in San Pedro Sula I was able to be reunited with all my pals from district 13G - Elder Porter, Elder Evanson, and Elder Snyder. I may have mentioned in the last email that Elder Snyder was in the hospital for some time, I found out that he was in the hospital because of parasites. Now I have another thing to be worried about here!

During the Multi-Zone conference (that's why we were at San Pedro Sula, sorry for not mentioning earlier) we heard motivational talks from the Mission President and Wife, from the AP's, and from a few secretaries (specifically the mission nurse). The talks were very inspirational, but I can't tell you a thing that was said because it was all in Spanish.

Two big events happened during the Multi-Zone conference. The first event to happen was some volunteers coming in to give us all Flu Vaccinations to prepare for this year's flu season. It is a good thing I'm getting this now because two whole towns in my area had zero participants in sacrament meeting because they were all sick. Some missionaries were very scared about having to get a shot, but I've had to take a lot of shots in my life and I can easily state that the flu shot is one of the less painful shots you can get (with blood drawings being one of the more painful shots you can get). Sure enough, I didn't feel the shot nor feel sore after recieving it. All I feel is happy to have some sort of protection for the illnesses I can recieve here.  

The second event during the Multi-Zone conference was the duet Elder Miles and I were assigned to play. We had two days to choose and practice the song, and I was relying on many prayers to get through it. But when we got to the piano we played perfectly (not really, but close enough to not let people hear our mistakes).  I'm glad to have done it and to now be done. I think I have a video of a practice Elder Miles and I did of the duet on Google Photos. Check my google photos to hear the song.

After the conference we had lunch with all the other missionaries and bought ties (the other missionaries bought ties, I didn't bring money to buy ties and my companion already spent 1000 Lempira ($50) the previous Multi-Zone conference buying ties).  While checking out the loot and planning what I'll buy for the next multi-zone conference I had the opportunity to meet ... someone. I did not catch the name of this someone, or what their job was, but what I do know about them is this: It's a He. He is American. He can speak both Spanish and English. He has connections with the San Pedro Sula temple and the San Pedro Sula missionaries. He may be a supervisor for the in-construction temple.  He is very cool and I would like to see him again and actually get to know him.

After all those events we headed back home, and I spent 3 hours in a bus with a full bladder (we nearly missed the bus, and I needed to go to the bathroom so bad at the start of the ride). Somehow I survived the ride, even when we were caught in construction traffic for a half hour.  My pro tip for you guys is to use the bathroom before taking 3 hour bus rides. That was an experience I don't want to repeat.

Because of all the time spent travelling we did not have very much time to proselyte and preach the gospel, but even a little bit of time is enough to have a spiritual experience.  We decided to visit some new investigators - Enrique and Mercedes - and they asked all of the questions the Plan of Salvation lessons (Lesson 2) is meant to answer! We knew straight away what to teach and after the lesson Elder Miles said I taught perfectly!  I'm so proud of that because that was our first time teaching the Plan of Salvation together and the only reason I was ready was because I took some time to read over the lesson's teaching points earlier in the week.  Because I was prepared, I was blessed with the ability to teach, and for that I'm very grateful.

Wednesday - Sept 6th

I'm going to try to make today's summary shorter because I spent 30 minutes writing yesterday's summary.  

Today was another busy day. We've barely been able to teach for the past 3-4 days and we are seriously falling behind in our appointments.  Today we taught only 3 lessons, but we also managed to encounter two new people to teach. This is a good thing because we have been falling behind in our tracting job and not reaching the weekly goal of 7 new people to teach.  It's nice to make progress on this goal, but when we discovered their accounts already in the system, with visits from every missionary that has served here in the last year we discovered that these people may hear our message but never act on what we teach. That sucks, but it's possible that this time will be different for this family. We'll likely visit one more time to give them a BOM (Book of Mormon), and then quit teaching them if they don't read any of it by the following visit. 

Today we ate lunch with the other missionaries in our district (Elder Van Dyke and Elder Porter) at the house of their pensionista. Similar to our pensionista, this family is composed of very active members and are always willing to help, even though they live in the other area they have come to help help us teach at least once.  

The reason I was busy today was because of the two meetings that takes place on Wednesday: Mission Correlation, and Ward Council.  During these meetings we presented our progress, and more importantly our plans for this next week and month. We will try to have 3 baptisms in the next 30 days (two are already set, and we're working with the third one at the time of writing this). I decided to spend some time practicing my Spanish and chose to present our plans to the ward, and it was very fun!  

Something I may try to do on my mission is record audio of me talking in place of writing stuff down. If you would prefer me to do an email with an audio file that you just listen to, please let me know. For now I'm just playing around with it and have been recording some short thoughts and experiences that I've had. Maybe I'll do some sort of mission podcast thing about what I learn during the week, but for now that's just an idea. I really like to talk in depth about things and to go off on tangents so I can very easily end up taking an hour talking.

Thursday - Sept 7th

Similar to Wednesdays, on Thursday we also have another weekly appointment - District Council.  Instead of doing morning study we go to the chapel in Las Vegas to have a short meeting as a district to talk about missionary tips and tricks and to practice teaching. This last district council was about teaching the lessons with more complicated thoughts for second teachings/teaching members. I think that is pretty good because it can help inspire curiosity in someone who already knows the _____ story to think about it in a different way.  We actually put what we learned into action today by going over the post-mortal life with a new member named Joury. After the lesson my companion said that that was the first time he had seen Joury think hard on something since they taught the lessons for the first time a few months ago. Joury is very smart and picks up / remembers things very quickly and easily so bringing in new thoughts and complexities likely was very exciting for him.

After the district council we got ice cream and I decided to give grape ice cream a try. I've had grape ice cream before and I can describe that as vanilla ice cream with a little bit of grape flavoring. This ice cream was different though. This was legit grape flavored ice cream and it was delicious.  For those who don't know, out of all the fruit flavors, grape flavor is my favorite. I always look for the purple wrapper first because it is my favorite one to eat.

Francisco Mateo - an investigator that we've had a lot of success teaching - now has a baptismal date set!  He will be baptized Friday, Sept 29th if all goes well. He also has a Book of Mormon to read (finally!). I'm really excited for him, and I hope that he can find comfort and peace in the Words of Christ that we've gifted him.

Friday - Sept 8th

I ran into a bunch of scriptures about service today - that must mean that service is important.  A way I often recieve revelation is by noticing trends in stuff. When I have a question I want answered, I'm never given the answer just one time. I always get the answer multiple times throughout a day or week. Before the mission it would be like this:

I have a question I want answered. I find the answer in the BOM. The answer is repeated during Seminary. The answer is repeated again on the radio. The answer is repeated again in math class. And so on and so forth.  

Whenever I spot repetition, I always take note of it because I know that it is God trying to talk to me.  I think I'm going to try to focus more on service these next few days and see what happens.

Today we walked from our house to Las Vegas (a 30 minute - 1 hour walk) and back. I'm never skipping leg day here on my mission.  During our travels my companion and I talked about the Millenium, and that discussion got me so excited!  Even before my mission the millenium was my favorite church topic to ponder, but now I'm getting very excited for those thousand days of peace!  Patience may end up being my favorite trial in life, because I can't wait for these prophesied events to come true!

If you are wondering what the Millenium is: The Millenium is the thousand years of peace that will take place immediately after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. During this time all people will be resurected, and after this time we will all be put into the Kingdoms of Glory to continue our growth and eternal life.  There are a lot more details that this, but I recommend you do your own research in the scriptures and in the teachings of the prophets. It sounds like such an amazing time, and from what I hear, we are rapidly approaching the day the Millenium comes (and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ). 

Other than that, the other main event from today is that we ate dinner with Hermana Claros and her husband. They are two very faithful members who have served in many callings. They are so friendly, and offer to make us dinner once a week, so we get to see them multiple times each week (at their home, and at the church)

Saturday - Sept 9th

I woke up today and did NOT feel ready to teach. During our morning practices I was really struggling to find the words to say to describe the Adam and Eve story! It is such a simple story but I was seriously struggling to remember it, and to say words to describe it. Luckily, I was given the advice to focus solely on the Adam and Eve story in Spanish during my studies and doing that helped me build my confidence and helped me to be able to explain the story of Adam and Eve and why it is important. I'm certainly not perfect at sharing it, but I ended the day better than when I started, which I count as a success.

The big event that happened today was that ... after 34 days ... it finally happened.  Water finally returned to our home.  After days, nay weeks with false promises of water to return, it finally happened.  This morning our neighbor told me that 100% the water pipes leading into our home would be fixed, and sure enough some workers came and repaired them.

It is SO nice having running water in a home. Guys, make sure to appreciate your running water, cause not everyone experiences that luxury.  My morning is so much faster now that I don't need to lug a bucket full of water to my bathroom to shower or to flush the toilet. Now I just need to turn a knob and I have infinite running water!!!

With all this extra time on my hand I will have to find new things to do to stay productive. Maybe I can read those general conference talks during that time.

Sunday - Sept 10th

For those in the USA - Happy Grandparent's day!!!!

For those here in Honduras - Happy Children's day!!!!

I think it's so cool that in both countries there are holidays relating to family on the 10th of September.

This is my first holiday here in Honduras and WOW did church attendance suck today. When everyone is out celebrating it gets really hard to keep up with weekly goals.  Other than that though, today was very fun.

We visited a home with a lot of children and were able to see what the celebrations may be like. It's a lot like Mother's or Father's day, but with more presents because there is often more than one child in a home.  We did not end up teaching them because we didn't want to disrupt their celebrations too much, instead we're going to try to have Family Home Evening with them another night.

Today was a great day for service. We helped a family harvest beans for their food, and we were able to take some food from one neighbor to another and teach both!  It's fun to serve and very rewarding too. After my mission, I may try to find a humanitarian group to serve in because I always find it to pay off. In fact, while I was doing humanitarian service in Kenya, I ran into a man who wants to build a library for everyone to use for free. He is currently trying to secure funding to build the library, and books to fill it. My plan after my mission is to try to reach out to him (if I can find a way to contact this man in Kenya) and see if there is any way I can help (maybe doing fundraisers to collect money or books for him ... I dunno yet).

The service we did also paid off well because we now have 4 lbs of beans to play with. We have no idea how to process and cook beans, and the instructions we were given did not make the process sound easy, but I want to try to figure it out so I can ultimately make Baleadas and other foods when I return home from my mission.  I don't know how long it will take to figure out how to do this, so I'm starting now. After all, I only have two years to learn how to make authentic Baleadas.

Guys.

It happened.

One of our appointments fell through today and so my companion turned to me and said "Okay, you're going to go tracting."  

Then he pulled out his phone and looked away. I had to lead the way to each home. I had to call out the greeting (instead of knocking on the door you yell out "Buenas!"). I had to start the conversation. I had to share the spiritual thought.

It was so scary. But I was not alone. My companion was there, and he did helped to encourage me to keep speaking when I hesitated. He also asked helpful questions to help keep the people engaged if I was struggling. I also had the Holy Ghost by my side helping me to find words for my sentences.

Did I do well? No. I am a long way away from speaking to people and keeping them engaged. But I'm not horrible. I managed to do it for an hour. And we managed to secure two people to teach again. Will they be interested to hear more? I don't know. Likely not. But it's a start.

This was not fun. But it showed me that I can do it ... kinda. Practice makes perfect. I can't wait for the day where it is easy to start a conversation with a person. To ask many questions. To keep people engaged. But for now I will just try my best to act confident and take it each day at a time.

Monday - Sept 11th

Happy (or I guess, sad) 9/11.  Another week has come and gone, and lots of stuff has happened. I'm glad I have the blessing of short weeks (when I'm done with them, that is). In this next week I will complete 1 month in Honduras. That is crazy!  I'm already two months into my mission and so much has happened!  If we condensed the two year mission into one year, then I will have just barely completed January and starting February. There is still a long ways to go, but it is always surprising looking back at how much time has gone.

Today has been more of a chill day. my companion and I did the usual P-day morning routine. Get up and get ready, then go eat Baleadas at a restaurant called the "Norma Caballero". I can't fully remember what the first word is, but the second word - Caballero - means gentleman.  This place makes really yummy Baleadas for very cheap (about 50 cents per Baleada or 12 Lempira).

After breakfast we went shopping at a different super market than normal. We had heard mixed reviews about it, but it is so much larger than the other one we've been visiting, and it has Dr. Pepper!  Dr. Pepper is very difficult to find here in Honduras, so I had to jump on the opportunity to buy some. Fun fact about me: My favorite soda is Dr. Pepper, and my least favorite is Coke. Guess which one is most popular and easy to find here. And the most difficult to find?  It's funny how it works out, but that was a fun little thing that happened today. We also discovered a new flavor of Dr. Pepper: Strawberries and Cream flavored?  My companion bought one and said it tasted like cough drops.  

We stopped by the chapel to use the wifi (because wifi is rare here and we have limited data) but the router or something wasn't working!  We reached out to figure out how to get the wifi working but we were just told that it always works. It doesn't always work! We ended up settling for the wifi at our pensionista's house when we stopped there to eat lunch.  Guys. Thank you so much for your email! I love reading them, and I try to reach out and respond as I have time.  It was fun to finally read the emails that I was sent, and I was able to update my apps and download music and videos. I'm most excited to take advantage of the updated Sacred Library app, though I'll need to download more songs for it to really be useful right now.

I've just got off the phone with my family and it sounds like they are all doing good. It's crazy how fast time is flying, and when I get back from my misison I may not recognize some of my siblings. They may not recognize me! I'm just glad I can have a means to communicate with them each week. 

Spanish word of the week

There are so many words out there that it is difficult to choose just one, or to even choose a phrase. But here's a common one.

Desgrañando frijoles - Harvesting beans. 

To be honest, I'm not fully sure what Desgrañar translates to, but harvesting is the best way to describe it. Basically it is taking the beans out of the sack that they sit in so the beans can be consumed.  This is the more common form of service we do here.

Scripture Quote

I was about to do the same quote as last week because I managed to memorize that quote. But I want to do a different one this time.

3 Nephi 27:29 - "Therefore, ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for he that asketh, receiveth; and unto him that knocketh, it shall be opened"

If you ever have a question about the gospel, I implore you to ask. Ask your bishop, ask the missionaries, ask God for the answer. If you put in the effort to find your answer and 'knock on the door', it will open and you will get your answer.

I hope each of you are doing great and are finding peace and happiness in your life.  If you are having struggles, I can testify that turning to Jesus Christ can help you endure, and eventually overcome your hardships.

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.

 - Élder Grant