Stranded 12 Km (7.5 Miles) From Home...

How long would it take to walk 7.5 miles? 

Hi friends!

I hope you all had a great week! I sure had an eventful one! Several highlights of this week were: divisions with my ZLs, moving to a new house, and visiting some members and a referral super far from where we usually visit. Let's get to it!

Divisions!

I was paired up with Elder Coc in Cofradía while Elder Muñoz (sound familiar?) went with my Elder Elias (my companion) in San Marcos. As it turns out, both of my zone leaders right now (Elder Coc and Elder Muñoz) are going home with me in June, so we had fun divisions chatting about life and visiting friends in Cofradia. Out of all the missionaries in my 'missionary generation' I knew the least about Elder Coc, so it was super fun getting to know him. When we got to the ZLs house to start divisions, we were surprised by two other missionaries who lived next door who are assigned to the Cofradia 2 area. Elder Smith and Elder Flores came out with orbee guns and all of the sudden we were caught up in an orbee war between the zone leaders and the other missionaries. Their plan is to have an orbee gun zone activity and it sounds like it'll be fun! As we went out to visit we met several new people, and had an awesome lesson with some members present. When we finished the lesson I discovered that the daughter of the member that accompanied us lived in my previous area, and just so happened to be the grandmother of someone I helped baptize! I also met a cool recent convert named Guillermo that might've been a convert of Elder Snyder, though I forgot to ask about it.

When we finished transfers I headed to San Marcos with Elder Coc to start moving homes. Elder Griffin - the financial secretary - told us we had to move on March 1st, so we got everything packed up and made the move. It took several hours to move everything and clean up the new house and figure out how to get the water working in the home, but now we're getting situated in a cool new home. The new house is part of a brand new apartment complex that is situated right next to our pensionista and some recent converts. The home-owner is super nice too! Right now we're the only ones living here, so we have the whole place to ourselves! It's a super pretty place and I'm happy to be here!

We had to make the move while we were fasting because the 1st was on Saturday, but even with difficult fasts I always find it worthwhile to fast. It's such a special blessing and I'm excited to start a new month of work, diligence and faith. President McClellan talked to the mission about improving our scripture studies this month, so I'm going to try to improve on that.

Finally! 

After church we went with some members to their house in a place called Camalote, some 7.5 miles from San Marcos. It doesn't sound like too much, but with traffic and construction it takes a while to travel so far. We ate lunch with the Mendez family (fried chicken, rice and beans with some amazing chile and coleslaw), and then we visited the Sierra family. They are two amazing families in the branch that are full of dedicated church members and leaders. They are so helpful. They told us that we are some of a very small number of missionaries that has taken their time to visit them. One of the reasons we took the time to do it though, is because we received a referral for a family that lived close to them as well, so we had enough people over there to make a visit worthwhile. Due to the poverty of the people here, making the sacrifice to go to church a few towns away is something many people can't do, so they prefer to go to the church right next door. Anyways, after getting lost for 30 minutes we found where the referral was located and shared a message with them and invited them to church! We'll see what happens with them as time goes on!

In summary, this has been a good week! I also have fun things to look forward this upcoming week such as divisions with the District Leader and another Multi-zone conference! I'm having lots of fun here, and I hope that you guys are doing well wherever you are! Talk to you next week! 

- Élder Grant