Holy guacamole!!

Holy guacamole it's been a crazy week! I'm exhausted in everyway possible. Transfers have kind of shook me to be honest. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions and if you have any words of encouragement or inspiration, good scriptures, talks, anything, I'd greatly appreciate it. Being a missionary is very unique experience and I've had some incredible experiences but that doesn't deter from the fact that being a missionary is hard some days. Like really hard. I know it will be worth it. This mission isn't mine, it's the Lord and that's why I keep doing what I'm doing.

Sister Call. Isn't she cute...and short!

I have learned an important lesson though. The scripture Alma 37:6 "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." I've thought a lot about the miracles Christ created from small things. Because Christ can't create something from nothing, he has to obey the natural laws. But he can take something small and insignificant and turn it into something great. Just think about it. He turned 5 loaves and 2 fishes into a feast for 5000 people. He used mud to make a blind man see. He turned water into wine. He created the earth from microscopic matter. Or think of how a tiny drop of olive oil can heal a person. Sometimes I feel very I significant. But from small and simple things great things are brought to pass.  He can change me into something more than I can even imagine. It's hard for me to believe sometimes. I have a difficult time seeing my own potential. But he sees it. He knows it. I just need to have faith and believe. That's something that I've been learning this week. 

In other news, D- is on date!! He has the craziest experience in the hospital. A chaplain was visiting people and he stopped by D-'s room and shared some scriptures with him and talked for a bit. Then before he walked out he turned back and told D- "God really favors the 25th or July for your baptism" like what?!?!?!?! We've been trying to get D- to pray about July 21st for the longest time and he just felt like he hadn't been getting an answer then boom this guy just straight up tells him. I have no idea what religion he was but he was an answer to a prayer and God works in mysterious ways.

We did really good with finding this week. Stopped by a few formers and got return appointments. Not sure how promising they were because they set up a return appointment before we really got talking to them hahaha. But at least it's set! We picked up A- again who had a lot of potential. He's just been super busy and meaning to text us back but hadn't gotten around to it. So that will be good. All our other investigators are doing pretty good!!! 

So we're just barely getting the information from the other elders area about their investigators and formers and potentials.. So we're gonna have around 800 new people to find and potentially teach!! Hahaha our area book is going to have a panic attack. Or I will. I'm fine. Pray for us. 

This week will be good though! The Lord will provide a way! We're going on exchanges tomorrow which will be good! And then we have ZTM. So a lot is happening!! No matter what happens remember God loves you!!

We're the womanaries!!

Hello!!! Happy transfer pday!!! I'm happy to say I'm staying in Palm Bay!!! Sister Hunsaker is being transferred to New Smyrna...  she's going to be an STL! Which is super exciting but I will miss her... but I'm excited to meet my new companion Sister Call! Apparently she's like 4'8" so I'm like... a foot taller than her. She's only been out one more transfer than I have so hopefully we won't be chickens with our head cut off. But she looks super cute and I've heard good things so I'm excited! But because of the lack of missionaries coming out right now, the elders area is now being shut down. So it will just be us in our ward and one set of elders in the other ward. We're already so busy I have no idea how we're going to handle that!! Wish us luck!!

So in other good news!! R- got a job! One of the members in our ward has a camping/outdoors company and he set up an interview for her. She'll be doing a lot of sewing sleeping bags and tents and things like that. But it's good money and she said the people that work there are a bunch of hippies with crazy hair and tattoos so she said she'll fit in hahaha. Also they may have found a house!! Well it's a duplex.. and it has no appliances right now but it's looking hopeful. And it's still in our ward boundaries! They'll find out on Wednesday if they get it so say some extra fervent prayers for them. Our bishop and his wife are seriously saints. They've been letting their family live with them for over a week now. They are the most patient and Christlike people I've met. There are so many good people in this world! Yesterday E- was wearing the bishops daughters dresses and had her hair in this adorable little bun, she looked so cute. And Da- and Dak- had little bowties on. It just warms my heart. 

In other news we've been working really hard to get less actives back to church. My goodness they are so stubborn sometimes!! I know they've felt the spirit, I know that they had to believe this church was true or they wouldn't have gotten baptized but they've just forgotten. But we've been working with this sweet old lady B- C- since we got in the area. We just talk to her and sing for her. She used to be quite a well known singer with her sisters. They used to have a radio show and would perform on variety shows all over the country. And we recently found out that Tad R Callister (general Sunday school president) was one of the missionaries that converted her when she lived back in Massachusetts. Crazy!!!! And a year ago, he actually called up our bishop and told him to go visit her. And he wrote a letter to her but she hasn't responded to him. But after 50 years we finally convinced her to come to church. She is the sweetest lady. She told me and Sister Hunsaker that we better not settle on our husbands and that she would call them and make sure that they were good enough for us. So it was a big success to have her come to church!

Miracles!!! We found 2 investigators in a day! One surprised us because it was the partner of E- who we've been teaching for about a month. We've met him before but haven't talked to him a lot. But E- invited him to sit in on our lesson and he did and he had tons of questions! He didn't grow up Christian but wanted the peace and the direction he noticed in Christians lives. He was super on board about the restoration and told us he would read the Book of Mormon with E- everyday! And he wanted to come to church.

Then there was G-. We met him a few weeks ago and he is very Catholic, Greek  and very stubborn but he also had a lot of questions and wanted to know more out of "curiosity." But we went to his house at the perfect time right as he got home and he let us right in and we taught him the restoration. When we taught him the first vision he just said "I believe it" and then when we bore testimony at the end he said "wow you guys really know this, you're glowing" he said he wanted to buy a Book of Mormon but we told him we'd get him one for free. He surprised us by saying he'd come to church and he seemed pretty set on it, but then he didn't show. So that was a bummer.. But we're not giving up.

So to explain the subject line one of the ladies in our ward picked us up from exchanges and her son who's like 5 said "what are we doing with the womanaries?" Anyways he's adorable... I bribed him with a sticker if he'd eat his chicken nuggets. And me and sister Hunsaker did indeed wear the ties we made to district meeting. I looked absolutely ridiculous because I had 3 different patterns on but I kinda dig the tie look hahahaha!!! We're noobs.... it's fine..

But it has been a great week! Miracles happen all over the place. I was reading in Mosiah 21 today and I learned a profound lesson. The people of Limhi are put in bondage by the lamanites because of a promise that he made with Abinadi. First off, tells us that God always keeps his promises, even if it's not always the most favorable outcome. And the people cry to the Lord to deliver them from bondage and he hears them but it isn't his will to deliver them at that time. But he does help them prosper while their in bondage. He doesn't deliver them or answer their prayers the way they wanted them to be answered but he will give us everything we need to endure our trials. Then, when we need to learn what we need to and become sufficiently humble, he will help us overcome anything. I don't know if that made sense but I thought it might benefit someone.. it's a good chapter. Look it up!! 

Lots of love!! 

Sister Grant 

We gave the Ward Council a heart attack!...

Heeheehee...... because of us!! Not in a medical sense (though the member that drove us around thought that) but we went and "heart attacked" members from ward council to show our appreciation to them. Seriously, they are the best ward ever!! They'd do anything for us. Some of the most generous people ever. They Appreciated it.

 

So I celebrated my 3 months as a missionary this week! What did we do?? Biking in the rain, and dealing with members emotional problems and not eating dinner haha....ha.... like get this?? We haven't biked in like a month and the weather has been beautiful!! The one day we bike a monsoon happens!!!!! Ok not a monsoon but the hardest rainstorm I've seen since I've been here. We were teaching a lesson through the worst of it but then afterwards it was still coming down and after biking a mile we had a saint of a member come rescue us. But it's all good. I can laugh about it. The rain was refreshing. 

The week was busy as always though. We didn't go tracting at all this last week which was a blessing! We've been teaching a lot and have some solid investigators. 

The spirit of Elijah has been very present this week with family history! We met with a member who is native American and she was showing us her family tree and some of those names were the funniest things I've ever heard. She grew up on a reservation so her family has some legit native American names!!! For example some of my favorites: chicken don't swim, day old woman, plain house, goes around yelling, otter goes to water. I'm not making these up people!!!! Can you imagine doing temple work for these names??? So funny we were dying. And R- has caught the bug and set up her family search and has been loving that. She's learning a lot of cool stories which help put her trials in perspective. And we figured out we're like 13th cousins haha. I also found out one of my ancestors was mentioned in the Joseph Smith papers (but my filters on my tablet won't let me look at it, excuse me, I'm trying to be righteous) but that was cool! 

The highlight of the week was of course A- and S-'s baptism!!!! It was such a special experience. We were a little worried because some crap went down with R- and J- earlier in the week but they pulled through and J- baptized his daughters. He was super nervous but afterwards said "I get the whole emotional thing now, it felt so warm and light, no wonder God and Jesus can float" haha he's the best. D- fell asleep on my lap in the middle of the program and I had to lead the music and I tried to sit him up to wake him up and he just flopped back down on my lap. So Sister Hunsaker did me a solid and led for me. Now the R- family has 5 down 2 to go!! (The oldest daughters are going to be hard. And they still don't have a house.... or jobs. They've been searching desperately and R-'s put in like 50 applications and nothing is turning up. Sometimes I feel so hopeless as a missionary. But the ward has gone above and beyond with helping them. I'm so blessed to be able to witness their kindness.

 My heart wants to burst every time I see someone reach out in love to them.

We have 2 more people on date! F- Br- who has been an eterni-gator but has decided he's finally ready. He's so prepared he knows more than I do probably. He's basically taught the lessons when we go over. But his wife threatened to divorce him if he gets baptized.... :( and it's eating him up. Please pray to have her heart softened. F- is the cutest old man. He needs to be baptized. 

The other person is E- who is just awesome, she's a young mom and has SOOOO many questions. Like her mind is working faster than we can teach her. But she gets overwhelmed easily... especially when she asks the deeper doctrinal questions which we have answers to... But don't want to freak her out right this second. She just needs to take it a step at a time. So pray for her too.

Also, adult people, if you have missionaries in your ward, please feed them!! Our ward is super great but I know other missionaries don't get fed that often but if you do they will be your best friends!! 

 It's a great day in Palm Bay!!! I love it here!! I hope I never leave! 

Sister Grant 

Working hard doing service!

The Light of Christ!

 

Waffle house and a hobo...

Hello friends and family!!! What a week! What a time to be a missionary! Let me tell you this morning was the most relaxing of my mission. We went to the beach and read scriptures and then I took a snooze. With the waves in the background. What a morning! And then we went to Waffle House which has a reputation for being kinda gross but this one was pretty nice. But it did have it's own hobo!! So I guess it was still kind of ratchet.. And the waffles tastes like a continental breakfast but hey it was an experience.

So miracles this week!! We had some super crazy cool contacts. 

One day, all of our people cancelled on us and we had to rework our schedule completely and it turns out we were being led by the Lord. We felt that we should go stop by this new investigator we haven't been able to contact in awhile and she wasn't home but her neighbor across the street was outside and we talked to him for a solid hour. It turns out his mom is in our ward and he'd just been watching a show about Mormons a few minutes before we got there. He was so cool and after talking with him for 20 minutes I felt like I'd known him my whole life. He'd never been interested in the past but now something in him changed. He said he wanted us and him mom to come over for dinner sometime! So we hope he does! 

We got 2 new investigators in one day and they lived right next to each other. One was a former and the other we just knocked into. The 1st was a 7th day Adventist but felt that every church has fault in it (that's just because he doesn't know about our church yet) but he said if he learned the BofM was true he'd get baptized! And the other guy said he had a ton of unanswered questions and wanted answers and invited us back! 

The last one was this older guy (we were trying to meet his son) but we talked to him for awhile. He was Catholic and said he was too old to change but had a ton of questions about our religion!! So many things impressed him about prophets and unpaid ministry, tithing, etc. He said he'd met a Mormon the other day and they gave him a pamphlet and invited him to conference then he met us! These things aren't coincidences people. By the end he said he'd come check out our church sometime. 

Finally J- received the priesthood and will be baptizing his girls on Saturday! It was kinda crazy getting them to church because they're kinda homeless... But bishop interviewed him during sacrament meeting and they sustained him at the end then set him apart after church. It was a crazy day! But we're on track! Keep them in your prayers. They need a miracle. 

Also an eterni-gator F- said that he feels that he could be baptized in a few weeks! But his wife is giving him some grief... And threatened to divorce him if he get a baptized. He's practically doing everything Mormons do anyways (paying tithing, cleaning the church, word of wisdom) but he's just not baptized. So pray for him too!

Layton is getting a temple!!!

Guys. President Nelson is so inspired. I feel like he just blew my mind every time he got up to speak. I feel like he was having in-the-moment revelation and just leaned over to his counselors and was like "hold up, I need to tell them something else." President Holland was hilarious "Some of us have weak hearts, but I guess you could fix that too. What a prophet!" Ugh conference was so good. I was just in awe the whole time. I loved Elder Uctdorfs talk about beholding the man and that's something I want to do better. I got a notebook to write down thoughts about Christ I have. I also loved Elder Taylor's talk about being a child of God. As a missionary, I think that's one of the biggest things people forget. They don't realize they're a child of the most powerful being in all creation. That's powerful. I loved how in Elder Gong's talk he said that his son said his dad was the "chief of the universe" and I was thinking, well he's not wrong. Most importantly that being cares about you!! Individually and personally.

This week was so crazy busy but awesome! We had Zone Conference on Tuesday which Sister Hunsaker and I gave a training at. I'm not sure why they picked us, because I'm still a greenie but Sister Hunsaker came up with an awesome plan and we rolled with it and it was great. We compared the talk "your 4 minutes" to our missions and got everyone super pumped for missionary work. Our mission President said it was excellent. Lots of people told us it was their favorite so that definitely reassured me that I kinda know what I'm doing. (But mostly the Holy Ghost just knows what he's doing) 

We had exchanges on Wednesday with the lovely Sister Schwendinger. And I adore her. We have a ton in common. Like we had the same top 4 Disney movies. And are both hopeless romantics and like to ask questions. It was an incredible day. Exchanges bring miracles. I lead out the area, which was also terrifying because all of our plans fell through and I didn't have Sister Hunsaker to tell me what to do haha. But we just visited some formers and found 3 new investigators in one day! Our weekly goal was 2! So that was incredible. I felt super in sync with her. She's incredible. 

P-day!

Then on Friday we went to the temple! It was stunning. We woke up so early.... Like at 4:00 and the members who drove us were saints. There was 7 of us in a car, it was an interesting bunch. I had the most intelligent conversation with a 12 year old boy. He was hilarious. He asked me about what my college plans were and what my back up plans were. He has his whole life figured out at 12 and I don't even have a back up plan.  But the celestial room in the temple was stunning!!

The chandeliers and lighting had me in awe. And I was cool to be in the room with so many missionaries. When we got in there the sun had just barely come up and I was reading my patriarchal blessing and a rainbow fell on the paper. I think heavenly father was just saying hello. I love him so much and he is too good to me.