Sooo... I'm Not Sure What To Name This Weekly Email.
Full title: Sooo... I'm not sure what to name this weekly email. It's not that there aren't cool things to title this - a lot of stuff happened this week, for example: We had a stake activity, choir practices, two ward councils, divisions, district council, awesome lessons, and more! But I'm saving those for the bulk of the email. *Sigh*, I'm sad that I only have 1 hour to write an email because I could honestly write forever, but I need to better spend my time doing other things - Like baking pizza! Now, I'm not sure how much more I'll write here in the title because I need to put the pizza in the oven, but I hope that you guys have a great time and I applaud you for reading this instead of the rest of my email! I hope these shenanigans can make you laugh. One a final note, have you seen the new Wonka movie? I have to wait 19 more months before I can watch it, so you'll need to tell me if it's even worth the watch ;)
I hope you didn't read the whole title
This week was super busy, so it's quite a shame I only have one hour to write.
I'm going to get right into it and just write as much as I can.
Las Glorias
We went to a place called Las Glorias for our P-day activity. Las Glorias is basically a super fancy (as fancy as Honduras gets) hotel. It had a little bit of everything - a limousine here, a rodeo arena there, peacocks and turkeys around the corner, and the classic Honduras LAS GLORIAS letters.
We had an awesome time with our zone exploring all of the interesting objects at the hotel, but I went through everything twice because we showed up an hour early (technically, we were on time - and everyone else was an hour late). It was very fun taking photos and getting videos and hanging out with my friends. Sadly, I couldn't upload photos because there was a Google Photos glitch. I believe it's fixed now, but I'm not so sure.
District Council
We decided to move district council up ahead a day, so instead of doing it on Thursday we did it on Wednesday. Because of that, I had a one days notice that I was going to give the district council lesson/training.
The hour before the district council I sat down, opened up Preach My Gospel, prayed for guidance and started planning a lesson. In the end, my lesson was just a rundown of the Plan of Salvation, but with a pretty awesome picture if I do say so myself. (I'll try to find a photo to share with you guys).
During the lesson Elder Porter said something really interesting: Us missionaries teach three main lessons: The Restoration, The Plan of Salvation, and The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Porter related that to the: What, Why, and Hows of our message, and I'm glad I understand a little better the Why of what we teach. It's all because of the plan God made for us!
Division
We moved our District Council up a day so we could do divisions. Elder Franco hung around with Elder Porter in Las Vegas while I took Elder Montoya with me to El Mocho. Wednesday was a pretty stressfull day because I had to give the district council lesson and I had to lead the area with my missionary nephew, but it all turned out fine and I had a lot of fun.
Being a leader is stressful, but the few moment's I've had so far being a leader have been fun. I love being able to prove to myself, to others, and to God that I am trustworthy and loyal. It's hard work, but I find that in the long run I only find blessings. I would like to thank my Dad for teaching me to stretch outside of myself and serve others, it really taught me the importance of long-term gratification - sacrificing now for the promise of greater blessings in the future. I have found a lot more growth working on the more long-term stuff than the short term, and I wish I could say this better so I could impress on everyone that you should do this too.
Divisions were not for a full day, but just from one reunion to the other, so we started after the district council and ended during the Mission Coordination meeting we had 5-6 hours later. It was a fun test, and while I was very nervous during most of it, I would do it again.
Ward Council
We lined our divisions up with mission coordination and ward council so everything would work out better. During mission coordination we did some research in the church manuals on how a mission coordination should work, and we discovered that mission coordination meetings didn't need only missionaries, but also all the church leaders, ward missionaries, ward mission leaders and more! We have been severely lacking on this front, so we prepared a machete for all of the leaders for the next meeting we had.
Somehow, word must have gotten out that we were going to have a machete moment because NONE of the leaders showed up to their own meeting! The meeting ended up being cancelled and we decided to move it up to Friday.
On Friday we came to the ward council meeting and prepared to share with the ward the 2024 Central America Church Plan. The plan is composed of three main parts: The Rising Generation, Ordinances and Covenants, and Ministring. On Sunday we presented the plan and talked about each part and encouraged each member to take a part in this plan so we can all be edified and supported by each other.
Choir Practice
We have had a bunch of choir practices recently, and that is because we were signed up to sing two songs during an upcoming Stake Conference (more on that later).
Stake Conference (it's later)
Actually, I'm not done talking about Choir Practice: Before, During, and After the practices I've been working with Elder Porter in learning music vocab in Spanish and in learning how I myself can become a better player. Learning how to change the key of a song is super entertaining and I hope to refine that ability (and more) in the future.
NOW TO STAKE CONFERENCE: Instead of doing anything else on Saturday, we went to Potrerillos to have a Stake Priesthood Meeting, and a Stake Christmas Devotional. The bus picked us up at noon, all of us excited and ready to go, and then we came home at 9:30 exhausted and ready to sleep.
The Priesthood Session was the first part of our meeting. It took 1.5 hours and was kinda boring (I'm sorry). They went over the three parts of the Area Plan (mentioned above) and sang some songs in between.
The Christmas Devotional was super fun and too much to talk about here! It suffices me to say, though, that we sang our songs, the other four wards sang their songs. I learned a bunch of Honduran songs and witnessed a bunch of Honduran dances (Honduran dances are very romantic with a lot of shouting/flirting and fake kisses (some of those being real kisses)). I loved participating in it and recording most of the show as well. I uploaded the videos to google photos if you want to see them. (https://photos.app.goo.gl/
There were Honduran Songs, Honduran Christmas Songs, English Christmas Songs Translated to Spanish, English Christmas Songs NOT translated, and English songs - the whole batch.
Baleada Locas
I realize I haven't explained what Baleada Locas are: Baleada Locas start off with Baleadas, got that? After you have a Baleada you grab a Pollo Chuco (another popular Honduran dish). You then take that pollo chuco, with it's chicken, banana fries and pickled onions and plop it on top of the Baleada.
Think about Animal Style In-n-Out burgers, and imagine that kind of thing on a Baleada. It is very yummy and very filling. In fact, even though I've had Baleada Locas about 8 times now (thanks Pensionista!), Saturday was the first time I finished one all the way, and I was only able to finish it with the help of some BBQ sauce.
Patrick Kearon
Shoutout to Elder Patrick Kearon for now being part of the Quorum of the Twelve!!!
Sunday Talk
I was VERY involved this week - Choir, Divisions, Leading Lessons, District Council Lessons, and to end it off I was also asked to give a Sunday Talk! This week has been SUPER busy, and I love being able to keep each day interesting with different and new responsibilities. Sometimes I feel very intimidated by the assignments I have been given, but with the help of The Lord, I haven't failed them yet.
Teachin 'em One-By-One
On the topic of specific stories: We had planned in our calendar to meet with the family of Alva Luz - an active member in our ward. As we were eating lunch she suddenly came out of the back door of the pensionista's house (because she washes laundry there to earn money). We decided to take advantage of the opportunity and had a very short lesson with her. Then, on the way to the house of Alva Luz we ran into her children heading out to buy groceries. We decided to also give them a short lesson to get them excited about going to church. After them we finally made it to the house of Alva Luz, but she wasn't there (she was at the pensionista's house), and nor were her children there! (They were buying groceries). Luckily for us though, her mother was there, so we went and taught her a short lesson as well.
It was very interesting to not teach a family all at once, but each separate, but this kinda follows the example of Jesus because he taught the people 'one-by-one' so each person could get a customized lesson to what exactly they needed.
End of lesson
I do apologize for ending this off here without a Spanish word of the week or without a Scripture quote/thought. This 1 hour email thing is killer. I am thinking of writing another short email - seperate to this one - dedicated solely to spiritual thoughts so you guys can still get your spiritual nourishment. If you want some homework to do - I recommend you listen to every talk by Patrick Kearon (there's only 6 in all church and BYU records) to get to know him better.
Additionally, I found these two BYU speeches to be very interesting.
https://speeches.byu.edu/
https://speeches.byu.edu/
Okay. My pizza is finished, so I'm going to end here.
I hope you all had a great week and will continue enjoying this most special time of year. I love you all! See ya!
- Élder Grant!
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