It's All About Progress!

Hi friends! 

To be honest, I don't know what to write. That doesn't mean that nothing happened this week, it just means that too much happened to recount.  I suppose I'll start with the people we are teaching.

First of all! We have had several people on date to be baptized, and ... it's complicated. Why is it that life is so complicated? 

I think I should start with Britany Castellanos, because we just barely got some news from her.  Last week we went to ask her parents for permission and support for her baptism. We wanted to do it sooner but they aren't home very often. We ended up stopping by multiple times during the week until we finally got to talk with her parents. After asking them for permission they said: No. But after sharing our testimonies they said that they would discuss the topic as a family. During the lesson, I was worried about the situation, but got the strange feeling that everything would be okay, and that she would recieve permission to be baptized.  Sure enough, on Sunday she told us that her parents gave her permission to be baptized, and she seemed pretty happy and excited about it! It seemed that God answered my secret prayer to know how things would go!

But...

We just barely got notice that her parents changed their minds ... again!  We're going to visit them tomorrow and see what's up. It's crazy how many twists and turns come in missionary service!

On a similar note, Hector is also coming up on his baptismal date, and he's been progressing well.  But a spirit of contention has suddenly gotten ahold of his mother.  For a year the missionaries have been teaching her, and she's been content and happy and agrees with everything taught ... that is, all except Priesthood Authority! For some reason, she freaks out every time it is brought up, starting to bible bash about anything and everything.  It's come up twice so far, and the first time she freaked out because she felt the spirit once during an evangelical reunion (which happens, the spirit isn't picky with who it visits, every deserves and can feel the spirit in any kind of situation, from different churches, to temples, to prisons, to the home).  The second time (which was Sunday) she freaked out because the 'Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' isn't mentioned in the Bible.  Of course not, it says in it's name that it's a Latter-Day church, and in fact, few churches are even mentioned in sacred scriptures.  Off the top of my head I think of the Priests of Baal from the OLD Testament. The spirit of contention was really in her and she fought about Catholicism, not liking so-and-so, and whatever hollow argument that can come to a person's mind. As she talked she mentioned that God wouldn't do this, or that, or that he would do some other activity that just doesn't show the amount of Love God really has for each of us.  As I listened to her speak, I realized that she believes in a God that doesn't really love us, and that made me sad.

My companion and I noticed that time was running out so we told her that we didn't have more time to chat and that we would bare our testimonies.  He gave his, boldly testifying of the priesthood power of God and of how the authority of that power was restored to Joseph Smith, and when my turn came I testified from my heart that God loves us, and her, more than we can properly understand and- ... she interrupted me!   She started going off about how she believed in God (I must have offended her by testifying of a loving God and that I believed in Him (I'm bearing my testimony, mind you)) and went off for another 15 minutes!  We had two members with us and they helped wrap up the situation.

I ended the day sad, less about the circumstance or the people, and more about the fact that I was not able to testify.  I think of the song that goes:

 "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

But the very next day, you gave it away".

And I feel like the exact thing happened with my testimony.  A testimony comes from the heart, and interrupting it is like saying "I don't care", "I don't love you", "I don't care what you feel or what you have to say".  

I need to make sure I never interrupt anyone's testimony every, because I hated that feeling, and I don't want to cause anyone to feel that way.

Sorry for that rambling.  Don't hate the mother of Hector, in fact , the mother of Hector is a very nice lady, she is very loving and is supportive of Hector. At this current moment, she doesn't quite understand how much God loves and admires her, but with patience, and love, and the Holy Ghost, she can understand better and come to appreciate our message of hope and peace to the world.  I hope things go better and that the spirit of contention that has suddenly appeared can be overpowered and replaced with the spirit of love, of understanding, and of God.

I'm quickly running out of time so I will only mention a final family that are earnestly looking for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We've been teaching two young women - named Katherine and Michelle - for a few months, but recently they've had an earnest desire to follow God (based on some spiritual experience that I'm not aware of, I'm sure).  This week we asked her parents for permission and support for them to be baptized (if they wished it), and at first their parents didn't seem so certain.  We decided to bring Karen Arevalo with us and she talked to the parents and helped them see other perspectives of the situation, and invited them to learn with their children.  Since then, the parents have given their children permission to be baptized, and have participated in our lessons! It's super awesome seeing the parents supporting the children, and actively learning with them.  The last time we visited them, the father and one daughter was ill, so we gave them priesthood blessings!  They are awesome, and I'm so grateful we decided to keep teaching them, even when they didn't appear to be very interested at first.

On other news: 

 - I've been reading the autobiography of Parley P Pratt, which may have impacted my form of writing in this email.  

 - I've been working on my Spanish pronounciation - specifically the letter D, that makes more of a 'th' sound in Spanish.  It's weird changing the form of pronouncing vowels, but it's slowly getting there. Elder Muñoz says that American missionaries like to pronounce syllables weirdly, but I don't quite yet understand what he means.  We'll see if it gets figured out.

 - We planned a youth activity for next week: Painting BOMs to pass out, and we passed out invitations with a young man named Reynaldo 

 - We helped the bishop set up a bunch of swimming pools for a Primary activity.  It was a little sad to be helping set up pools knowing that we were prohibited from entering them.  I just need to wait a little longer...

 - Our Pensionista, Hna. Mati (Mathilde) went to the United States, so we now have a replacement pensionista for the next month (her daughter - Karla)

 - We've been enjoying the general conference talks that we can now read and re-read.  I've listened to Jeffrey R Holland's talk like 5 times so far.

Anyways, that all about me! I do appologize for not leaving Spiritual Thoughts, I feel like I'm bad at that because I don't plan beforehand what I'll share and I run out of time to share it.  I would like to recommend to all of you to read and listen to Jeffrey R Holland's GC talk - Motions of a Hidden Fire, and if you have time, to read Come, Follow Me with your family.  Today was our first day with Karla as our pensionista and after lunch we read Come, Follow Me with her.  You guys can also try to read some before or after a meal to always have that habit of learning a little bit about the gospel every day!

Anyways, I love you guys! See you next week!

- Élder Grant

Also, if you guys would keep in your prayers: 

Katherine and Michelle Lopez

Hector Discua

Britany Castellanos

Roni (and Rixi) Avila

and Justin Quiroz

We would greatly appreciate the prayers, as they really do work! Please pray for their health and for the Spirit of God to accompany them as they make important decisions.