EE 15

Hola familia Grinnnner.                                                    1/04/2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Our new year was probably the coolest one ever. haah. We got done with work at about 8:00 p.m. and went over to Hermano Amins house to eat and visit and watch them party.... It wasn’t so lively but what can ya do. Haha

After dinner and a visit we decided to celebrate a little bit.  So we went and bought some stuff from the colmado (corner market) and took it up to the roof of our apartment building.  We then climbed on top of the neighbor’s house so we had a better view of the Monument in the middle of the city where they light off fireworks.  We took our treats and camera and waited for the show at midnight. Haha.  We had the best time.  The next day I was dead tired at church from not getting as much sleep as I am used to!  But, wow thank goodness it’s a new year and we get to start off with new goals!

This week has been really cool! I’ve gotten to know my comp a ton better and I love him. We are able to communicate much better.  The language barrier is bridged by the things we have and do in common – the Gospel and teaching, and talking while on the roof.

We are having really, really good lessons, but people just don’t want to do much. I have learned a ton of how to teach with my new comp and I’m so so grateful for that.  We had one lesson with a guy named Enrique that Elder Jensen and I had been teaching for a while.  We found him on the street just sitting under a tree and that is where we have been teaching him the whole time. He loved reading of the LDM (book of Mormon) and always wanted us to give him something new to read, so we always did hoping that he would understand. But he never wanted us to teach him.  We finally got to teach and we decided to teach a franca lesson, which is a lesson to give them a chance to tell us if they want us to teach anymore or not. So, we taught him and he felt terrible about not wanting to be more proactive in learning the Gospel and that we would have to move on to others. But, we dropped him. It was one of the worst things that I’ve ever had to do. But, he wasn’t progressing and not doing anything but reading. So, hopefully that will help him in the future when other missionaries contact him.

 
Ssoooo on Sunday we had..........32 people in the church!  wohooo awesome right.  Not.  No one was there and my comp was so so confused.  But with all of the vacations and celebrations nobody had time for church I guess, ah. We can definitely see our ward is still in its infancy as far as understanding, commitment, and leadership. The priesthood holders try but don’t know much because most of them are 1^st generation members of only a short time, and a lack of training, etc . So we have kind of devoted our time to that during the week, teaching the elders of the church and the members, so that they can feel more comfortable being more involved which makes it good for us and finding contacts 

We were at a member’s house the other night, the family Vargas.  Their son always leaves with us and has a good time. That family is always at church.  But, his mom has been sick and has something wrong with her.  Right before we were about to leave there house Hermano Vargas stopped us and told us that his wife wanted a blessing of health from us.  So we went to go give her a blessing thinking that I would anoint and he would seal the anointing and give the blessing.  He said that he didn’t know much about that and thought it would be better because he hasn’t done it much. So my comp and I were pleased to do it and it was way cool.  But I felt bad for him not wanting to give her a blessing!  We tried to teach him that there’s no time like the present to learn but he wasn’t having that.

haha. Oh we were in a contacted lesson and we had taught most of the first lesson and asked the guys we were teaching if he would pray for us, he said no, no I don’t know much about praying!  But the thing is that during our whole time in the lesson he was telling us about him being a preacher and attending his church and taking other people to his church but still didn’t want to pray. So my comp prayed but as he was praying the man was just chanting "JESU JESU BENDICEME JESU OOOO SENOR BENDICEME!!!  (Jesus, Jesus bless me, Oh, Lord bless me) over and over. I couldn’t help but smiling to myself during the prayer!!!  ha oh my goodness it’s something I won’t forget.

We haven’t had electricity in the house for about 3 days now and its pretty cool to study, plan and shower by candle light! hahahah

Here are some pictures of the week!  One is on the roof of our house, the other is at the airport that is closed down and the last is one of our areas! 

But wow okay,  Happy New Year everyone!  I love you a lot and I am going to start writing everyone a lot more!! ELDER GRINER