The end!!

The final countdown!...We are the champions!!...I'm comin' home!

Holy cow this week blinked by. It was honestly a really great week. I got to do all of my favorite things. I didn't expect it to be anything spectacular... and it wasn't.. but it was very fulfilling and I'm very grateful. Wowza I can't believe I'll be home on Wednesday!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhh!!!! I'm psyched out of my mind. I think I'm going to crash sometime soon. But I can do it.. I can do it..

Hey my homecoming is at 

10:30 on June 23rd at 725 S 200 E Layton Utah.

Highlights!

~I went to lunch with my Recent Convert Jessica! She is seriously the funniest human ever and it's been so cool to see how she's adapted over the last year and how much she loves the gospel. It's amazing to know we have a friendship for life.

~I went to lunch with Chris who is also a very funny human!! He gave me the best life advice as always and lightly roasted me as always but it was great. Man I've missed my friends.

~Wednesday we had a bomb district meeting and talked about real stuff. Our district is awesome and they're my best friends and I'm going to miss them so much!!! Ugh I've never had this much unity before and they've helped me through so much!

~We got to take Olivia to a temple tour and a baptism! She's progressing so nicely and is getting really excited for baptism! She just fits in so nicely. It was awesome to go to the temple and appreciate the beauty and have her recognize the peace that was there too.

~We went to a synagogue with Corey and his family! Super interesting. They have way cooler music than us though. It was in Hebrew but it was still cool. A kid got Barmitzfa'd. I have no idea how you spell that ahhaha. The Rabbi did not want to talk to us at all. But it's all good. It was just weird having no mention of Christ at all. The spirit was still there but not as strong as it could've been.

~On Sunday we went to Olivia's non-denominational church. Also super awesome and the music was great! She plays the keyboard in the band. The speaker was awesome and talked about surrendering to God's will which really resonated with me. She gave a lot of good insight but it kinda felt like "what do I do from here?" They didn't really have any doctrine. I didn't really know what they believed in besides Christ. But it was still good. Olivia recognized the holes in it herself so that was cool.

~ Anthony from College Park got baptized!!!! Me and Sister Russell were the first missionaries to teach him and after a year and Elders he finally decided to get baptized! It was super cool to see his conversion over the year as well. He had an amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon. It's been amazing.

~We had the departing temple trip on Friday and I felt the spirit super strong. I just felt such a love and acceptance from God of my mission and it was so cool. I received a lot of revelation and made some cool connections. It was all I could've asked for.

Wow so many memories!! I've been so blessed. God has made this last transfer amazing. It's been an emotional roller coaster but I know with  more surety than ever that God loves us and that he has a plan. I know that this is the true church and that more joy and happiness than can ever be imagined is possible through his gospel. I've seen miracles. I've seen tender mercies. I've seen the Atonement of Jesus Christ work in others lives. I've seen my life changed. I know that I will never be the same. It's been the hardest time of my life, and honestly, most of the days sucked, but I'll be forever grateful for the growth that occurred for the rest of my life. This experience has been priceless. Thank you all for supporting me. I'm so grateful to see you in 2 days!!!!!!

"The happiest place on earth"...Pres. Nelson

Yeah the prophet came to town!!!!! It was the best day of my life!! Honestly. all we did was go to church and go to the devotional, It was just like General Conference! We just got spiritually fulfilled all day! I think my favorite part was Sister Nelson. She is just a hoot. She told us all about her experience dating President Nelson. She was like "How do you date an apostle? I didn't want to say Thanks but No thanks President Nelson." She talked about the 3 prayers that have changed her life:

1. Help me fulfil the full measure of my creation.

2. Thy will be done

3. Please bless me with this..... or something better.

I loved that! Because God's will for us is always better! So when certain blessings we want are withheld, it's only because God has something better in mind, and not in a conceptual way like you'll get more patience instead, but like the outcome will be better than what you had originally wanted! We can ask for the best because God wants to give us the best!

Other highlights of the week:

~I went on exchanges with Sister Wheeler and Sister Bulloch who I love!!! We tried out park contacting and met some amazing people!!! We felt so fulfilled! So many children were invited to Christ. And on Saturday it was Pokemon Go Community day! So there were hundreds of people on their phones and it was very confusing but good to start conversations with. 

~Ummm that's the only good things I can think of that happened hahahaha... But also I think my memory is failing because I'm so tired. It was a super good week...

~Oh Game night!! Yeah I knew there was something... We had a game night for the ward at the chapel! We had a good turn out and it was a blast. We had 3 non-members that came. We played Charades and pictionary and board games and it was a blast.

~One more week!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm stoked. I have no idea what to expect for my last 9 days but I know it will be good. Pray for me. I think I might die. But also there will be a miracle in there somewhere. I love you all!!! 

~Oh yeah I dyed my hair blonder... I like it!!

~Also my college park friends came and took me out to dinner! I love them!!!!

Teaching Jew, Gentile and Presbyterian

This week was amazing!!!! And it was emotional. Because I'm Sister Grant and I cry a lot. But there was happy and sad tears. And mostly just exhaustion.. and heat stroke. Because it was 104 degrees on Tuesday!! This is August Weather people!!

Highlights of the week:

~We're teaching a Jewish son and father. We met Alex while we were biking and we told him about how the Book of Mormon was a history of the Jews. I'm not wrong hahaha. So he said we could bring him one. The next day on exchanges they met Corey who is his son and has been experimenting with Christianity lately. He's a good kid. He's struggling internally with somethings but I know that the gospel will lift so many of his burdens. It was interesting though because when we taught him on Saturday his mom sat in on the lesson and she teaches at a Hebrew school and we explained that we like to open and close our lessons with a prayer. And she asked if we could not pray in the name of Jesus Christ because they didn't believe that he was their savior and I felt like a deer in the headlights. How do you not do that????? I can't not talk about Jesus!! I love that guy!! So I asked her to say the prayer... It was weird. But Corey came to church on Sunday and loved it!!

~I went on exchanges with Hermana Goettig I got to practice a little bit of my Spanish again! Hermana Goettig has my heart. She is just adorable and understands me on a spiritual level. We had such a good time even though we went park contacting at 3:00 in the afternoon and nearly sweat my pants off. We talked to some really cool people from the Phillipines and found out the lady's dad was a member and because we talked to her she felt like it was a tender mercy from her father. They kept calling us their angels and wanted to take pictures with us. It was cute.

~ We put Olivia on date for baptism!! We had a super good lesson on the Word of Wisdom of all things and then we started talking about how she feels the spirit. We helped her identify some times where she'd felt the Holy Ghost during our lessons or while she was reading scriptures. And we asked what she felt like her next step was and she said she wants to set a date for baptism! So we're stoked.

~We also taught a family. Who has 2 married parents, and 3 kids, and they have stable careers, and a car, and a nice house. Like when does that ever happen?? I was so nervous let me tell you. They are also super active in their church but were so open! We taught them the Plan of Salvation and sometimes people are hesitant about the after life but they said that it could be true and invited us back next week. Their little boys were so cute. They have a 10 year old and 2 twin 5-year-olds. Pray for the Mulock family!

~I got to go to dinner with my favorite people the Hefners!!! He was my ward misison leader when I was in Canoe Creek and they are just the cutest and they had a baby and It was just the best time. They have me a lot of good going home advice and it meant so much to me. I'm eternally blessed for the relationships I've developed with people out here in Florida.

~I went on exchanges with Sister Johnson and we got to help out with a 5K in Sanford. Which we had to wake up at 5 to get there so that sucked... but it was a blast. We were designated to help the runners make the turn so we pretty much just cheered everyone on and like over 500 people saw these too crazy representatives of Jesus Christ hyped up on the spirit making them feel good about running. So I would say that's a win. We also became bffs with our volunteer police friend who was also on the corner named Tio. He kept calling us Utah and Colorado and thought we were just the funniest thing in the world. It was a good day. And then we ate hotdogs at 10 am with half our zone. 

All in all I learned a lot about testifying of Jesus Christ. Most of my interactions have been with people who already have a relationship with Christ and I'd never felt more strange than when I was told I couldn't use his name in my prayer. I'd never experienced that but it helped me put into perspective just how important it is to represent him. There are people in the world who don't understand just how much our savior loves them and wants them to accept his help throughout life and it makes me so sad. I wanted to give them that so badly and understood just a little how it must feel for him too. I'm so etrnally grateful for my savior and all that he does for me daily. I would be a wreck without him and I hope to serve and love him the rest of my life.

Hey do you want to try out the missionaries?

Sorry I tried to send this last week but it failed..... 

Real time quote from our cute recent convert Michael! He wanted to share the gospel with his friends so he introduced us to his friend, Harrison's family. He just owned that door contact it was super cute!! He was so excited that he shared the gospel with somebody.

Ok I'm slowly loosing motivation as the day progresses but I'll try to give quick highlights.

~We found another family when we had like 15 minutes to find one day. I felt prompted to talk to this family before dinner but we didn't have time so afterwards I decided we should knock on their door. So we went and this guy answered and we told him about temples and eternal families and he said we could come over next week. I was kinda in shock. So that was awesome. I'm really pumped to go back over.

~We had dinner with this non-member guy, Dan, who found us at Jeremiah's a few weeks ago and he's super loaded. So he told us we could pick anywhere to eat and the Elders picked Kobe Japanese Steak House. It was insane! I've never been to one of those places where they cook the food in front of you and throw stuff in the air and light things on fire. Dan was super cool! He's had so much exposure with the church and basically lives the standards but he's just too content with what he's got. But he is the kindest Samaritan I've ever met. Seriously. I pray that one day he will see the need for the restored gospel in his life.

~We helped a recent convert, Lynn, pack up her house to move. It was insane. It's been the project of like 3 months....... but we finally got her to her new place! Gah. But she could not have done it without us. So I'm grateful that we could help.

~We had an amazing lesson over the phone with Olivia! She is earnestly praying to know if the Book of Mormon and the church are true. She told us that if she finds out it's true, she'd be baptized!!! So I really hope she gets that answer soon! She's truly amazing!!

That's about it... along with a lot of emotional roller coaster because I only have 3 weeks left... I honestly have no idea what I'm feeling. This mission thing is rough holy cow. I love it but I want to be home, but I want to be here. Ugh. I don't even know.