My Missionary Miracles & The Final Miracle

Hi guys!

I can't believe another year has passed, and 6 months of my mission too!  What a great way to start the new year with a major milestone in my mission story: the first quarter (missionary training). When I talked with my parents on Jan 1st, I confided in them that I felt pretty anxious about a whole new year.  You never know what's going to happen!  I'm going to go to new places, meet new people, run into crazy challenge, and all of it in another language!  What I really needed this week were a handful of miracles to remember that God is there, and that he knows me, and that he loves me. This past week is full of miracles, and I can't wait to share them with you.

Miracle #1: No more illness!

While my Honduran friends who have gotten sick last week are still sniffling and sneezing, I managed to overcome the illness, and now I can continue to work without trouble.  This past week was pretty rough in the fact that I was feeling pretty lousy, and I'm super glad that I'm past that week, and I have some relief.  

Miracle #2: Daily companion study

Elder Franco and I have been pretty lousy at always hosting a companionship study, but this new year, we made a commitment to always do it.  I was worried that this goal was going to drop after a day or two, but we've managed to keep it this whole week, and I've learned so many amazing things from it!

I've finally started learning what my comp has learned from his time on his mission! He's been sharing experiences and stories of lessons he's learned, and I'm so grateful to be able to discover more ways to serve and bless people!  I feel so much more productive now that we are edifying each other.

Miracle #3: The Daily Grind

Another miracle for me is the success we've had in finding new people to teach.  Every day we found at least 1 new person to teach, and now we have 12 more people to get to know!  Contacting is very scary for me because I am very inexperienced socially.  I often drift in my thoughts and lose focus on what people are saying.  Somehow, though, we've managed to give off good vibes to the people around us, and we'll start visiting with them again next week to teach them more!  

For the past few weeks we've really struggled in finding new people (some weeks finding 0 people), so having a very successful week gives me hope that I'm progressing in my ability to communicate with people, and that we'll be able to continue finding new people to teach!

Miracle #4: New Youth Songs

Just when I was feeling down and wanted something peaceful to fill my head, I discovered that the church added new youth songs for the year!  I'm excited to be able to listen to them, and not the same songs I've been listening to for the past 6 months. I often find I understand better when I'm listening to something, so I'm grateful to be able to have the miracle of technology, where I can listen to music and talks from the church which brightens my day and teaches me so much.

Miracle #5: Cristina came back!

I don't know how much I mentioned Cristina, but about 2-3 months ago she fell ill and needed to move away to her daughter's house so she could have better access to a hospital.  Cristina really helped me learn Spanish and practice teaching while I was with Elder Miles because she already had a solid foundation of the gospel and was very patient with me.  I was very sad to discover that she had to leave, but out of nowhere we recieved information that she returned! I'm going to try to get a picture with her before we leave so I can share with you guys this wonderful daughter of God.

Miracle #6: Surprise lessons!

On Thursday we had a very last minute change of plans (like, I was heading out the door when my comp told me we needed to change plans), meaning we had no confirmed visits.  We were luckily to land a bunch of lessons with people, and we had the awesome surprise of Julio and his wife (Elder's Quorum 1st counselor) joining us to teach a few lessons.  We didn't coordinate visiting with them, be we both ended up in the right place at the right time!

We were also lucky enough to have a ton of lessons with members present, allowing us to accomplish our goal of 8 member lessons (with investigators, we had many more with recent converts and the like)

And now, for the most important miracle that we had!

Miracle #7: Possible baptisms coming soon!!!!!

While we were trying to find new people, we decided to visit the home of a member that we had never met before.  When we enterred we found a family that was super excited to see the missionaries! As we chatted with them, two of the young women in the family told us that they wanted to be baptized. 

During my interviews with the mission president he asked me if we would see two baptisms this month (our mission goal is two baptisms per transfer for each companionship) and I told him that I wasn't sure we would have any.  I really want to keep up with our mission goals, and I don't want to disappoint the mission president, so we were basically given one week to find some people with a desire to be baptized so we could have enough time to prepare them before Feb 1st.  

I didn't think that achieving that was possible because we weren't seeing much progress with anyone, but we were given the miracle of encountering two people who were willing, and put in a place where we could help them with that goal! 

Obviously, nothing is set in stone. Things can go wrong at any stage, but this surprised has given me hope that we can accomplish the duty we have been given this month.  

Additionally, we will continue to work hard, so the next missionary that comes to the area can have people to teach, and they can see growth and success as well!

Tender Mercies

On terms of miracles, there weren't many more large things that I can report on.  Just some tender mercies, like finding the marker that I was using to mark up my Book of Mormon after I lost it. Feeling the spirit, and being able to communicate with people are also two miracles that I am repeatedly grateful for. The tender mercies that we get each day are very amazing for "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass" (Alma 37:6).

Everything else

Now that I've written the big stuff that I want to share, let's fill in the rest with all the other notable stuff:

 - Our ward got a new bishop

 - We fasted to start off the year right

 - Surprise visit by the Stake President (you guess why)

 - Had a phone call with the *old bishop to invite people to church

 - Spent all day visiting with an awesome member named Alejandrino (Nino is his nickname, and he calls me Nino)

 - Gave away a bunch of Book of Mormon to people

 - Drank a milkshake (I wanted a light meal, but it was ginormous)

 - Got a stomach ache (you guess why)

 - Discovered Melvin will go to the United States here

 - Plans were completely changed

 - Shared a Book of Mormon video to teach about Nephi

 - Tried some of Honduras's signature soda: Copan Dry

 - Discovered people selling Canada Dry

 - Tried Dr Pepper Cherry

 - Visited a distant neighborhood called La Colonia

 - Met people who live even farther than La Colonia (La Ponciano, and Buenavista)

 - Angered the grandmother of a recent convert (sore topic, won't talk about it)

 - Homesick on New Years

 - Celebrate 6 months on Jan 3rd

 - Remembered some dreams (somehow...)

 - Took a sip of potentially alcoholic wine... (no more information will be added, besides it happened when I was in the middle of my feverish illness state after Christmas)

 - Forgot to explain the second murder in my last email 

So.... yeah. That's my week.  Out of everything that's happened this week, I've taken out of it that I need to relax a bit more.  It'll all work out, just do it. I'm also discovering that English is starting to get difficult.  I now feel pretty uncomfortable with my language because I have to pause to think of the words in whatever language I'm trying to speak in.  It definentally doesn't help with my selfconfidence...

Anyways! I hope that you all have a great week, and I was given some homework by my good friend Elder Porter to take a nice close study of Moroni 7:48.  I haven't had time to do it yet, so I recommend you guys take some time and study it, and we can both report back on it next week.  Additionally, use Come, Follow Me.  It's pretty cool.

Keep on keepin' on, and enjoy every moment.  Life's better that way. I'll try to do that too.  Enjoy yourselves and the winter weather!  Summer is already approaching where I am (the summer months are March, April, and May) so this past week has felt warmer than normal.

Love you guys, and I pray for you every day! See ya later!

 - Elder Grant

As a final miracle to share with you guys! I have to include a photo for you to see.  When we started our mission-wide fast we were shown the stats of the mission of the past few years.  The improvement we've seen is a miracle!