An answer to my prayers

September 26th, 2016 

Tuesday - we went down to 33 for district meeting, it’s a nice hour nap, or reading the scriptures. Then we just did contacts all day because no one was home, we still only managed to get about 10 because there’s no one ever in the streets. Then we had a noche de hogar with a viejita (little old lady) name maria. 

Wednesday - was a normal day. Then we went to a recent converts house to teach her, but there wasn’t a guy home so we couldn’t go inside. So we played soccer with her 8 year old grandson, it was me and him vs my comp, and we won!!!! Then we got a call from the Wankiers the senior couple in the mission. They said they were coming to check our house in 45 minutes and they had my packages. So we ran home and cleaned the house nice and good. They were actually impressed with how clean it was, then I got my PACKAGES!!!!!!! Woohoo!!  Sooo much candy and goodies, and food. That was an answer to my prayers because we were running out of food, because we have had to go down to 33 so much, so yea that was sweet. 

Thursday - we had divisions with our president and the first counsellor juan pablo (juan po) who are 27 and 22, juan is actually preparing to go on a mission. So me and president walked around all of Vergara looking for less actives to go teach but no one was home. Or if we found someone we just stood outside talking for 20 minutes because they didn’t want to talk about anything religious. HAHA then we were walking back to the chapel and these 2 girls walked by and as soon as they passed they both kinda looked at me and giggled and president said.. “aay estas un jugador” which means “you are a player”, and I didn’t know what he was talking about and I said “de mujeres?” (of women) and he just laughed and said no. So I’m assuming the mission, I’m a player of the mission.

Friday - I don’t remember what we did this day. I’m assuming we just walked around trying to find people to talk to in this barren town. But I think we did actually find someone that day who said we could come back and talk. So that’s a plus!

Saturday - we played soccer in the morning with a less active kid and juan po, and I realized I suck. So me and my comp practiced a lot after we played. And I’m a lot better, but he told me I’m really good at defence and passing. I just need to work on my attacking. But not too much else happened today, oh we made smore’s that night. First we just burned all of the boxes in the house, then our garbage, then when that ran out we used the oven top. Haha it’s actually really hard to use the burners on the oven because all the heat concentrates in one spot. I burnt a lot, I’m ashamed of myself, haha!! 

Sunday - we went around in the morning reminding people about church, we actually had ward conference today and 39 people came!!!! We usually get 19, but I think it was because about 20 people from 33 came. Haha but my comp was supposed to teach the lesson and forgot. So I prepared it 10 minutes before and everyone from the stake presidency was thanking me for my awesome lesson, haha!  Then we were walking out and right after church Hermana Morena went to the almecen at the corner and bought a cake for some reason. Then asked us to pick it up and bring it to her house. So we did that, and she gave us a bowl of soup! Dinner for once in my time in Vergara! including in our home, because we don’t have much money. Oh also we got a reference from a less actives members daughter who lives in 33 but came up for branch conference. She said her friend is sad and needs some helps, so could be a nice opportunity. The thing is, it’s the missionaries from before that went over and she never let them in, but who knows!

Monday - me and my comp went and bought some stuff, then just sat in the house and talked for a while then came to do ciber, but he was trunky because he just hit 1 year, but then thought “but I still have 1 whole year left 😱”. I helped him forget about that. Things got really slow around here and I was starting to feel bad, because we’ve been trying and nothing has been happening. But thinks are slowly starting to pick up again, so best thing to do is blame the city your in and not yourself. Haha, no I’m kidding! The best thing to do is try, if you do maybe the work wont move forward, but you will. 

LOOOVE

ELDER GRIGOR

Elder Grigor hurt his foot playing soccer. P-days are rough on him! 

"Because he loves you, He will place you upon His shoulders, rejoicing. And when He brings you home , He will say to one and all " Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost" - 

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf 

" I got my PACKAGES!!!!! Thanks mom & dad,  and the Curtis Family!!!! 

Reading letters from home. One of his favourite things (besides food!!!) 

An answer to prayers - food!!!! 

The bare streets of Vergara- except for the dogs!! 

Walking through the streets of Vergara 

Finding beauty in a sunset

Making s'mores in our fireplace 

......and then resorting to the stovetop when we ran out of things to burn!!! 

All we can do is to just keep going strong

September 19th, 2016

Tuesday - ok today was our real p-day, so we went to 33 and played volleyball with all the other missionaries, then played soccer a bit too. Then an elder who’s leaving asked me and andersen to go and buy him some random things from Uruguay because he is going home tomorrow. So we just went around looking for random things to buy. Also I got a bunch of random things from Paskett too, because he’s leaving, then that night we had 6 missionaries in the plaza house again.

Wednesday - Transfers; so my comp and the other 2 missionaries from the area plaza left, so it was me and 2 others left in the house. We couldn’t find where the keys were, and thought the other missionaries that were coming to that house, (because they white washed plaza). But they didn’t show up until 10:30 at night, so we just chilled in the house waiting for them basically all day. Then we picked up our companions. My comp didn’t want to travel more up to Vergara from 33, so we stayed another night in the plaza house, this time with 7 missionaries.... and only 5 mattresses, it was nice to finally go home.

Thursday - HAHA ok so we left to go to the pharmacy quick which was right around the corner from the house, and when we came back there was a car parked outside. So my comp didn’t notice that there was a person in it, with the window rolled down, and he turned and farted right in the dudes face, then I told him what he just did, and we died laughing when we got inside. Then we finally got home, and I showered which I hadn’t done for 3 days, then we went out with president silva visiting less actives, (because that’s all we do here) and my comp got to know some of them. Oh also we had a nice big lunch with Morena like always! Yea not much else happened.

Friday - just another normal day, my comp is super funny. I didn’t think that I would like my latino comps more than my american comps, but I do. I don’t know why but I just have more fun and don’t get as annoyed, and we work harder too. But yea just a normal day, but I bought a cake and some alfajores for my comp because it’s his birthday on Saturday

Saturday- my comps bday, haha I surprised him with the cake and he thought that I left alone and bought it, I was glad he didn’t see it last night because I thought he did for sure. But then we had a zone meeting, and a ton of new things are changing in the mission, like verifying, we don’t verify every night now, only Sunday night, and we do weekly planning on Sunday night too. So we don’t get the night off basically anymore. But yea then we went to some members and had little parties, it was good.

Sunday - we were at the church all day like always.We did some contacts in the morning. haha we asked one guy if he talked to the missionaries before and he interrupted us saying yes yes, yes, yes, so I asked to clarify “so you’ve talked with the missionaries before, and he stopped, then said “look I’m watching tv right now”, and left. Haha then another lady who told us we can come back and visit, saw us and ran inside, and had her little kid stand in the door with a broomstick saying we couldn’t enter and that she wasn’t home. Haha people do the weirdest things here just for no reason. I don’t get it, but oh well all we can do is just keep going strong!

This week was good and fast, basically had 3 days of p-day at the start of the week. My new comp is awesome, haha we joke around so much, it’s sweet

Love

Elder Grigor

My new set up 

My new companion 

Ty! 

My companions birthday cake 

YUMMY!! 

Lunch with Morena 

Elder Grigor and his new companion 

Just chilling in Uruguay 

We ate our beavertails in sadness :(

Tuesday - so we planned a noche de hogar with Alvaro for today, he even put it in his phone to remind him any everything. So we bought like 400 pesos worth of stuff for beavertails to make. We went to his house at like 6 and when we got there about 10 seconds later music turned on, and we were clapping and no one came out, so we would wait in between songs to clap so he could hear us cuz the music was loud, it didn’t happen. Oh also it was raining and haha one time the music stopped unexpectedly and I threw my umbrella to the side to get a loud clap, and it landed in some dog poop in the grass, and no one came, so we went back home and ate our beavertails in our sadness.

Wednesday - had a district meeting today and since Elder Pasket (district leader) is leaving so we slept for 30 minutes haha, but today was good. My shoes are starting to get holes in them, and my insoles have huge holes in them. I need new ones, they are starting to make holes in my socks, a couple have holes but I just flipped them upside down and wear them like that. We helped clean the old house of some elders because they moved. We didn't do anything today, we just chilled and talked until our bus came, then had a noche de hogar with a super old lady in our branch. She barely hears us when we talk so she just always says yea to most of our questions or really anything we say.

Thursday - well it’s been raiging and been pretty cold here this week. Today we were walking with our umbrellas straight in front of us because there’s so much wind here, and nothing stops the wind here, it’s just flat open fields all around so you just get destroyed. But we mostly just walked around trying to find people to talk to. There aren’t that many people in the streets especially when it rains, and even if there is someone they don’t want to talk to you.

Friday - we got rejected by everyone, pretty sure it cleared up that day though, so it was pretty sunny, but we had nothing, just walked around talking to a lot to people. 

Saturday - ok haha so we found an old investigator, he’s 81, and every time he starts a sentence he says, “alright so I’m 81.. and I went to the market the other day!” haha and just says random things behind that. Also it finally happened (not to me), but my comp couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time, haha he was running to the bathroom, didn’t see toilet paper, came back and grabbed his planner, then it was too late... haha, but it was just a usual day

Sunday -  we stayed in this morning to make a big breakfast, then went out at lunch, but we were in the church all day as usual, attending church, then correlation and waiting for everyone to leave.

Monday - best transfer Monday ever (the Monday we don’t have p-day) so we all went to 33 at the bishops house there to have an Asado, and his house is massive. He has a rope swing made and it’s not on a tree its on steel beams, its crazy. He has a trampoline, a poo,l a zipline, it’s insane. We were there from 10-2 and we all went back to the church too  and played soccer to wait for our bus at 4. We left the church at 3:50ish to buy tickets, haha the bus was full. So we went to another company and they told us there was one at 5:40, so we bought those and apparently it was at 440 and my comp had the tickets and we didn’t think to look at the time. Haha we missed that one too, so we finally caught one at 7! My new comp is a latino, Elder Lopez. I found that out tonight, but we missed a bunch of plans since we had to say goodbye to people since we missed out buses last night. But yea it’s been a good week. I can’t believe I almost have 7 months, anyway I don’t have a ton of time to write to day. 

Love

Elder Grigor

Making Beavertails for Alvaro 

Elder Grigor is becoming an expert at making Beavertails 

Waiting in the rain for Alvaro 

Eating our Beavertails in sadness :( 

Sleeping with our district 

Chilling with our district 

"huge cheap burger, didn't taste that good though" 

"yummy snake" 

Messing around at the Bishop's House in 33 

Cooking food 

Waiting for the bus 

It was only one bad week, so we just kept our heads up :)

September 5th, 2016

Tuesday - we had a district meeting in 33, so I read for an hour on the way down, had the meeting and haha, Elder Paskett made gingerbread cookies for everyone and told me before “I’m sorry, blame your father”. I was so confused and then saw my “G” cookie was brutally mangled, apparently it was hard to make a G cookie. Then we went back to Vergara to work, and then left again at 8 to go to 33 for the temple trip. Haha, but we all stayed up partying because everyone was in 33 that night because the bus left at 5 in the morning for Montevideo, but we went to bed at 3 and woke up at 4:50.

Wednesday - drove down to the temple for 4 hours, and then had a nice conference with president, then went through the temple which was awesome!! I haven’t been through for about 5 months so it was good to go again, and I understood everything this time!! Then we went to the distribution centre and I saw a red leather Jesus the Christ in Spanish there but I didn’t have any money on me. Then we drove back at 4ish and told jokes and ate left over pizza and pop from lunch. It was pretty fun.

Thursday - We came back at about 9 and were dead all day from sitting in a shuttle bus with hard seats for 6 hours yesterday so we were pretty dead today, but it was super rainy today and we didn’t get too much done. We just contacted a lot of people in the streets, well.... the ones we could find.

Friday - we taught a man named Jesus who’s reactivating himself, I think my comp had a big impact on him last change and he quit smoking and starting reading the gospel principles book. It was super rainy and not too many people let us in. Haha one guy we went by and he always gives us excuses on why he can’t let us in. Sometimes because he’s fixing wires in his house and other times he just gives us lame excuses. Well, this time he did that and then said “there’s always somewhere else to go right??” We didn’t have anything else that day, so we just walked in the rain trying to talk to people.

Saturday - the president texted us today and said to come over for his daughters birthday party. So we went over at 4 and stayed all night haha. We were talking to a lot of people being normal people with them. Then I started playing with all the kids because his daughter turned 4. So I played around chasing them, and they were tackling me on the couch for about 2 hours.

Sunday - we went around to people reminding them about church doing contacts and stuff, then spent the whole day at the church, we cleaned it after church and then had correlation with the president.

Monday - we traveled up to Rio Branco which borders with Brasil and everything is super cheap up there. So we have been saving up for this and we came up and bought some new pants for 15 dollars, and 2 shoes for 24ish. We got really cheap stuff and we can use these for tracting and stuff.

This week was really quick. It felt like I just had the temple trip, but it was also just rainy and miserable, I didn’t have too much success this week, but it’s only one bad week, so we just kept our heads up and and joked around a lot, and talked with a lot of people too! 

That’s about it this week, love you guys!!

Love 

Elder Grigor

Elder Grigor and his companion on a "cool bridge" 

Filling up at a buffet restaurant 

Elder Grigor's plate of food 

So much food

Elder Grigor "stuffed" after 1 plate. 

From Elder Grigor : "haha, I was mad at the buffet, because I loaded up on

 all the good stuff at the front, and found out after I ate it all that the 

meats were in the back around a corner, so I missed out on all the good 

stuff, plus I only ate 1 plate 😥, I'm losing my appetite here😭"

Love this wonderful young man!!! 

We finally had a lesson with Alvaro!!!

August 29th, 2016

Tuesday - We had a district meeting in 33, so I got a nice hour on a pretty comfy bus, they only have greyhounds out here. Then I had a 1 hour nap on the way back too. Then we went to the hospital after that, to check on my head. I have to do that everyday, sometimes it takes 5 minutes, another times it took 1 hour. Then we did some contacting, which here is knocking doors because no one answers, and then we had a noche de hogar with a recent convert, we learned how to make meatballs.

Wednesday - We had English class in the morning with a guy named Juan who always seems drunk but I guess he might just be like that, because he never smells like it and says he hasn't had a drink for 2 months. Then we went back to the hospital waited for a bit, then just had a pretty normal day. We did service for Morena, an older lady in our ward, we basically took her for a walk, and bought some things for her house then carried them home... it took 3 hours. We had an appointment after we helped Morena and they showed up 1 hour late, at the same time as us. At first I was a little mad that the "service" was taking so long with Morena, but God always has a plan. We help her and still met with the family. It was good, we cheered her up a lot. She reminds me of grandma, she always has treats. The less active family that we taught after that said they would come to church so it all worked out. 

Thursday - This was the day that I thought I was going to get my stitches out, but apparently I was supposed to take the bandage off at home after working, so it still wasn’t ready, and then had another day of teaching.

Friday - We waited for Juan in the morning for English class, but he didn't show up, then we went to the hospital after lunch, which has been noodles, some sauce and chorizo for the past 2 weeks since we never have any money in Vergara. They still didn’t take the stitches out. We finally had a lesson with Alvaro!!!!! It was awesome. We went in and read the talk in the July Liahona about science and our search for the truth, and he prayed at the end, and we scheduled another lesson for Tuesday!

Saturday - So this day was weird. We had some lessons, but one lesson we went by the house and the kid said “yea, our mom will be here shortly”. So we waited with them just talking, then 1 hour later the mom came. So we started talking with her and then she just left to the back room and didn’t come back for 20 minutes. We didn’t want to waste anymore time there and left. By then it was dark out and nothing happens here when its dark, everyone goes inside and drinks mate. We tried some people but no one was home.

Sunday - So we went by a couple people in the morning, reminding them about church like always, but it rained today so not many people came to church (here when it rains or it’s bad weather people don’t like to come to church) then I gave a talk in church about John 15:16. Then we had correlation afterwards and the president always talks for forever after church so we were at the church all day

Monday - worked out in the morning, then came to do cyber, but tonight we have another noche de hogar with Morena.

It was a good week, things are starting to pick up a little more, and hopefully it will be nicer next Sunday, so we can get more people coming to church!! 

Love

Elder Grigor

At a recent converts house, their son put those on us

A picture to match Ty on his mission 

Getting stitched up 

This is what I was doing when I cut my head

Family Home Evening making meatballs at a members home 

This is what my head looks like now after I got my stitches out 

** Picture warning -Not for the faint of heart

August 22nd,2016

Tuesday - had an Intercambio with Elder Lockhart in 33. He’s from California and is sooo funny, haha!! the whole day we were contacting. We went to one house and this lady was just starring out of the door, and we clapped and she moved her eyes over to us and just started mumbling. We tried talking to her but she didn't do anything except mumble, so we thought she was putting a curse on us or something (not really, we were joking about that). Then we just walked away, it was so funny and weird, haha and the next day they went back to that house and there was a dead cat outside, weird.

Wednesday - umm I can’t really remember what we did. Oh we found an awesome biscocho place for 2 pesos each biscocho, which is cheap, like 5 cents. So we bought some then went to Alvaros house, he is awesome. He was just leaving for work as we came up. He said it would only be 30 minutes so we waited there, then an hour later we left. We found a cool switch set for a train, I have a video but it’s pretty long.

Thursday - we went out with the branch president and we were at this ladies house for 2 hours teaching, but it was basically the president that talked for 2 hours.I hit my head on a workout thing in the park, it’s basically like an elliptical but I was on it backwards and tried to lean horizontal, I slipped and one of the legs hit my face, it didn't hurt too bad, I felt my head and felt inside my head and thought “well, this sucks, it’s only 7 and we still have 2 hours.” But we went to the doctor and they fixed me up, I just don’t want a scar there.

Friday -I bought some meds for my head. I have to go into the doctor each day to switch my gauze on my head until Thursday. That’s when they’re taking the stitches out. But again we tried Alvaro and he was just leaving to go to work. Not too much else happened. I think we taught some less actives, but not a lot of people like the church here. They make dumb decisions and blame the church on it. But that’s life

Saturday - I honestly have no idea what we did that day. Oh I know we taught a guy named Nelsen, he gave us a ride home from the lesson which was cool. Oh and somehow the stake president knows about what happened to me, he called up the zone leaders about me. 

Sunday - We went out in the morning and tried to invite Alvaro to church. He had to work from 2-5pm in another town, so we asked if we could pass by at like 7 and he said yea. Only 10 people came to church, it was kinda cold that morning. I taught the class for Sunday School, and i really liked it. I love teaching the gospel, and I would love it sooo much more if it was in English or if I  spoke more Spanish. We went by to visit Alvaro again, and he got a phone call to work as we walked up. There’s always opposition, but all we can do is keep trying. It’ll happen eventually, and I know when it does something will change in him. He’s atheist and has never prayed before, but he’s willing to change if somethings changes in him. He read the Book of Mormon before and liked reading it for the stories. So all we need is for him to pray, well all we need is for him to be home really. 

Monday - we bought some bischochos in the morning, made lunch and now I’m writing. We have family home evening with Morena again tonight.

Life is good. My head kinds hurts a little but it'll heal. Haha we actually met a new less active nurse from it, so maybe it wasn't all for bad. But I learned never to do that again, but yea it was just another slow week. I really would like to get a lesson with Alvaro sometime, but it’ll happen eventually. Sleeping kinda sucks, I put a blanket behind my pillow and sleep kinda sitting up so I don’t roll and rip out my stitches. Only another 4 days before they come out. I don’t know what it is but the streets just just don’t smell great here. I don’t love it!!! 

Love, 

Elder Grigor

This is what I was using when I hurt my head 

Elder Grigor's head injury 

All stitched up 

Our wonderful Elder Grigor 

And 1 more injury :(