La pascua o Semana santa (Easter or Holy Week here)

April 11, 2017

Tuesday - pday! Basically just slept all day, haha me and merino pushed our beds together for the last night and watched a movie in the morning, then we went to gaucho and patos for the last time together, then did cyber…the usual! Then in the night we said goodbye to some people wth merino, haha he got super trunky and didn’t want to leave me. But it needed to happen.

Wednesday - I got my new companion today, Elder Rodriguez from Barcelona, España! He’s pretty cool, we kinda know each other already because he was comps with Elder Solano my second companion. But he’s cool and super funny, we get along really well. Also Elder Paulson is my zone leader!!!!!! haha he’s awesome. He was in my district in Rocha when he was training and now he lives with me!!!!, and haha he has yu-gi-oh cards and we play it all the time!!! It gets pretty heated sometimes! Some might say we’re ¨nerds¨ and I would say: heck yea we are!!!! Also Camila our convert is so awesome!!! We went to her house and a family friend was there and she invited him into our lesson and invited him to church. So we taught him and he said he’s been searching for the true church. He accepted a baptismal invitation, we didn’t put a date, because he might not be staying here, but if he finds work then it’s a yes.

Thursday - Well we’re getting to know each other, and I’m showing him the area, but we had a really long charla with these 2 girls, haha 1 was apostalic (don’t know if thats right in english) and the other ¨atheist¨ but we shared the restoration, and haha the apostolic said well I was believing it up until you said that it’s YOUR church that this happened to, like only you guys have the truth (well kinda..) but no, it’s Gods church. Then the other was paying attention but their dad doesn’t like us and they told us to come by when he isn’t around. Also we had a good lesson with Flia Lemos and my comp answered one of Alejandros questions and he really liked the answer, so he’s getting closer.

Friday - we had a cool charla with a girl named Sofia, and we put a baptismal date for the 13th, haha we gave her a pamphlet yesterday and she read almost all of it, (almost no one does that) then we asked her to explain it and she explained everything fairly well actually for reading it 1 time. She’s 15, we invited her to church too but she didn’t come (slept in) then in the afternoon we were walking to Santa Bernandina (and the charla fell through so we walked all that way for nothing) but we found a kitten in the middle of a field, so we grabbed him and found him a home, sadly we found his brother on the road a little farther up, but he was super cute.

Saturday - haha so we contacted this couple a while ago and have gone by their house a couple times and they’re renting the house behind another house, so every time we knock the landlord is there and doesn’t want anything to do with us. So we knocked on the door and the son said that she was sleeping, then the dad comes out ¨well advise her at least with theres people here for her. Then he came out and walked closer to us and looked up and said ¨OH YOU GUYS´ then turned around and walked inside, haha me and my comp laughed quite a bit from that because he came out just to do that. 

Sunday - well at first no one showed up, but we called the Lemos family and they came, then Camila came later (after we went to her house to grab her, then finding out she just left) and she brought her friend, but he left when she brought him, noooo!!! If only we had stayed!!!!! Then we had another lesson with our Jehovahs witness investigator, and boy they are hard to teach. But we have some questions that she doesn’t know how to respond. But it was good, then we went to Lemo’s house and put a new baptismal date for the 29th of April with Alejandro, (the birthday of their 2 twin babies) so that’ll be motivation for him. Haha he put a bunch of self goals before he gets baptized, so we went over the requisites for baptism and we saw that he’s already ready. He just needs more of a testimony on prophets, so we’re gonna watch the Tommy Monson video with him.

This week was really good, I got my new Español companion, and Paulson my homie came to the house! Well really this whole change was good, we found soo many people, and dropped a ton, but have found so many good investigators that have potential. All in all we found 52 new investigators this change, pretty unbelievable, and we taught around 90 lessons (including with members and less actives) . Man I love this area soo much!! So we’re gonna keep trying to keep it up this change. And hopefully we’ll be able to turn some of those new investigators into baptisms!! Also we’re gonna be playing yu-gi-oh a ton this change since Paulson brought it over, (y si somos algunos ñoños)

Love

Elder Grigor

Elder Rodriguez and Elder Grigor

The river over by Santa Bernadina 

The cat we found 

A crazy yard we found on Sunday - Life imitating art!!! 

Treeception !!! 

SUPER SATURDAY- NOT SO SUPER SUNDAY !!

April 11th, 2017 

Tuesday - well I had intercambios with Elder Belnap, he’s my MTC comp’s son (my mtc comp trained him) so we were already warmed up to each other, but we crossed the bridge again, (I almost ruined my underwear crossing that again). But we had a pretty good day, had a couple charlas and found a new family to teach in the night. We did try to find a future investigator and their landlord just screamed at us that they were protestant and didn’t need anything. So I told him firmly that we weren’t there for him. haha I don’t think we’ll be going back there anytime soon. 

Wednesday - I woke up at like 4 in the morning just to figure out that Elder Belnap could go back up to his area with the other elder that was doing intercambios too. So then I went back to sleep, but then there weren’t too many people home today, so we just contacted and joked around all day. 

Thursday - The activity!! haha so we started planning this activity for the ward to help strengthen it, and haha no one came, it was going to be awesome!! So basically our convert Camila came, and Esteban and the bishop, and thats it. Haha we even bought a bunch of things for object lessons but... no one came. So we are trying to strengthen the wards and get more commitment from them. 

Friday - so from this day forward all the days were good, today we found a new family to teach, a lot of the people we are teaching though are leaving on vacation this week. But we are teaching them and their 17 year old niece. She is a Jehovahs witness and said she knows her religion isn't true but also doesn’t know if there is a true one. But she’s progressing pretty well, she said she’s gonna pray and search to find her answer. And if she gets one she’s gonna follow it. Then we went to the Lemos´ at night to teach them. 

Saturday - SUPER SATURDAY!!!! haha so we came up with this thing called super saturday where you put all the best investigators on Saturday right before Sunday so they have a desire to go to church, and haha we had 3 lessons with members and 3 other lessons and found 2 new investigators. But we had a really good lesson with Ana, a fairly newer investigator and she said she would come to church!! Also we had a lot of others say they were coming!

Sunday - NOT SO SUPER SUNDAY - so no one came to church... haha we found out Ana drank a TON of mate the night before and felt horrible in the morning but said she would come next week, (only thing is she isn’t married) then all the other ones slept in. Also another thing we have found 3 awesome people that would probably get baptized, and they live in the Hermana’s area... haha so were basically just finding for them! but as long as they get  baptized I’m fine with that. 

Monday - so my comp was just saying bye to people, and we had a couple lessons, actually mostly lessons, haha 1 lesson was going pretty good then her neighbour(who didn’t like talking to us early because we taught them both before) she came in and we both thought ¨oh great!!¨ but at the end she actually helped out, the lady we were teaching said “if I’m going to get baptized it’ll be in the catholic church because everyone does it that way” Then her neighbour said “well if everyone jumped off a bridge would you do that, you need to look and she if thats the church you want, not just because everyone does because everyone could be wrong” Then she thought about that for a bit. hahaha well that was nice to not have to tell her that, better coming from the neighbour!!!

Well yea this week was another good week, just filtering out the teaching pool, and trying to find those prepared people, haha we’ve also been sharing the Prince of Peace videos with everyone we see. But we’ve got some good investigators right now who can start progressing and yea basically that its. We are kinda starting from scratch this change trying to do that, and it’s working, but people just need time to truly convert!! Also my comp is leaving me 😱 haha he’s going to my old area in Aeroparque! He’ll like it there, and my comp is Elder Rodrigues from Barcelona! So this will be a good change.

llloovveee 

Elder Grigor

Elder Merino saying goodbye to the families in Durazno

Goofing around with the kids!! 

Elder Grigor with his district in Durazno 

Don't take life too seriously !!!

April 3, 2017

Monday - My bday!!!!! We had a couple of parties and a family home evening with 2 families in the ward, and then the guys we live with surprised us with a cake!! It was amazing!

Tuesday - I had an intercambio with Elder Colson. He’s new, he’s been out about 2 months and he came here with Coral. I’m pretty sure they were in the same district in the MTC. We had a decent day, it wasn't that great until at the end of the day like 8 o’clock. We had nothing to do so I was contacting, and a guy named nacho(who actually kinda looks like jack black) opened his door and said he was atheist and a professor of philosophy. So I had an impression to say we were spirits before this world, and he said: “how’s that, how do you know that? Here, can you come in?  I want to hear this.” So we taught him and he agreed to pray that night, and we gave him the Book of Mormon. We explained it, and he asked if we could sing it and write our testimonies. Then he asked: “so how long does it take to get an answer, because if it comes in 30 years I’m not gonna be too happy!”

Wednesday - We had a good day, we started trying a new strategy in contacting and tried to give them the first lesson right there, and it’s working pretty well. We ask if we can explain 1 page, then we say a prayer and explain the whole thing pretty quick, so we talked to 1 guy (but he told us his wife is totally against it and he doesn't want contentions). Then another lady who works in compaña (in the middle of no where) and she’s only in her house 4 days out of the week and she lives in another part for 26 days... then we taught a menos activo (less active) lady whose family aren't members.

Thursday - Today was decent, we are trying to help out Enrique and Ana a lot to get them to come to church, but we’re thinking Enrique doesn’t want to. They are investigators from a while back but they haven't gotten married yet. 

Friday - Another decent day! Haha we tried teaching these kids how to pray but their dad came out and got mad at us and ran us off. He was a member and his family died and now he doesn’t like the church, (sometimes when things go wrong people blame the church. The church has nothing to do with that, it’s just there to help you when those things happen).

Saturday - Conference!!!! It was a really good day because (well 1 bad thing-I'm sick) but it’s conference! So I loved the talks. There were a lot of words I didn’t understand because they talk in weird words, but there was a lot of problems with the transmission. Sometimes the translator wouldn't say anything and would say things I couldn’t understand (I can’t hear him in English) or it switched to french 1 time. But it was still good, no investigators came but Camila came, she is our convert. Then in the middle of the sessions we taught a family of 4, a mother, 2 daughters and a ten year old grandson. They were all listening really intently but 1 of them was listening soo closely and following along so closely, haha at first I though she wasn’t going to pay attention because we gave her the pamphlet and she was on her phone. Then she opened it right up and asked what page are you guys on!!!!!! It was awesome and they understood soo well about the priesthood power being lost. Then we watched the priesthood session in english, and I loved the talks. Especially Elder Bednar and Elder Eyrings talks. 

Sunday - Wooooo!!!! the Lemos`came to church!!!! and she asked what happened to the classes and everything. So we explained and she said, alright we’re coming back next week too. The only problem is that she smokes, but her son and husband both accepted invitations to be baptized! Then I also really liked yhoon chau or however you spell his name, his talk was really good: about looknig up. Then we had another lesson with the Lemos family.

Monday - we had a zone activity today haha it was pretty fun, then we got a bauru and ice cream. But yea it was a great week.

So basically we found like 3 families that want to start listening to us. We also found 14 new investigators this week, working hard and finding lots!! The best thing is most of them are prepared or will tell us if they don’t want anything so we don't have to waste too much time teaching people who aren't ready YET to progress. Also the changes are in 1 week and I’m not ready. I want my comp to stay, we having fun together. 

Haha have fun everyone!!  Don’t take life too seriously. Learn to have fun, life can be difficult. It needs to be difficult or we wouldn't be here. So learn to find the fun in everything to help you along the way!!!!

Love You

Elder Grigor

Fun times at a Zone activity 

Elder Grigor & Elder Merino on their birthday !! 

Birthday Cake for the two missionaries 

HMMMM.....good cake!!!! 

Intercambio with Elder Colson

These shoes need to be burned! 

Elder Merino at our investigators home 

This week was GOLDEN !!! ( and I turned 20 today )

Tuesday - So we had a multi zone conference in Florida, so we went there in the morning, and had an amazing American lunch (potato bar) yep a bunch of drunk potatoes!! But we talked a lot about working with the Jovenes (youth) to invite their friends and to start working through social media since people always are buried in their phones. Then we got back home and had a couple lessons.

Wednesday - So we had a bunch of lessons planned today (also this week we had a bunch of new investigators, but today we only had 1 but she was awesome, her name is Maria and was saying: “don’t teach me I’ll waste your time at the start”, and said that she never prays. By the end we explained what prayer was and she said: “oh well maybe I will do that then”, and said she would pray about the plan of salvation!!!

Thursday - Today was a really good day. So we taught a lesson in the morning with a new investigator. We invited her to be baptized and she said: I’ve already been baptized 2 times, and I said “well do you want to be baptized a 3rd time, and she said yes!! We just need to go by again and set a date because we had to leave to do a baptismal interview. haha so I did the interview to an older lady, and she had a really cool story. While she was reading she said she saw a pillar of just a light shining above basically, which motivated her more to be baptized. Haha also she thought I was Chilean because of the way I talk!! Then we had 3 lessons with members and got a couple new investigators as well.

Friday - Another great day. So I went up to Paso de Los Toros to do 2 interviews, they were really good. 1 was with a military dude, haha I’ve never seen a military man so nervous!! (I kinda felt like his captain). Then another with a really strong convert, haha he started reading all of gospel principles before his baptism and almost taught the missionaries teaching him. Then in the night (oh also I went with Elder Ruiz because he had to do some interviews too) we found Ana and Javier.  We had our first lesson with them, haha they are golden. They want to get married, she thinks that we are god’s chosen messengers (so she took modern day prophets really well, and the priesthood) and they said they would be baptized, they knew it was true!!!!!

Saturday - Another great day, we found a couple new people to teach, and a great less active member whose family aren't members. She wants to come back and have her kids baptized, so that'll be great to work with them. We talked with Analia, Camila’s sister who was progressing towards baptism but stopped. So we talked to her and she said she didn’t get along with a leader, so were gonna investigate that tomorrow.

Sunday - So we figured out the problem with Analia. We talked to her and she said that she was gonna go to church next week, and she was going to go today but she slept in! So were gonna try to put a baptismal date for the 15th with her. But my comp told me she had some doubts about prophets, so conference will be good for her! Then we found another girl today named Guanda (wanda) and we put a baptismal date for the 22nd! 

Monday - MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!! It’s super weird that I’m 20 now, I still feel 17 so I guess I’m not a teenager anymore, I’m turning into a man!! But yea that’s sweet that my bday is on a p-day so I can take the day off basically!! But I think we’re gonna get ice cream today! P-day tradition!

So yea, this week was amazing, we found so many people to teach, and not just random people, a lot of people that really can progress in the church. I’m glad to have been able to find them, me and my comp are having a lot of success. Also I turned 20 TODAY!!!!! Super weird, but I knew it was coming eventually. It just happened real fast, soon I’ll be 40 and that’ll be real weird!!!

Well love you guys, have a great week!

Elder Grigor 

"Some cool church we found :)" 

Elder Ruiz eating Ice Cream 

"The four spoons they gave us to eat our ice cream with!" 

Camilla was baptized !!!

March 20th, 2017 

Tuesday - well we went to the temple, and it was awesome!!! I love going to the temple, then we had a nice 3 hours bus ride back and got home at like 8ish

Wednesday - we had a zone breakfast in the morning/district meeting in the morning, so I made some pancakes and maple syrup (cuz I’m Canadian!!) but I had to make them in the morning at the house because the church has no gas. But they were still decent, we also had bacon! but we had to cook it in the microwave, that’s one thing I miss, bacon.... Then we had a huge lunch with a sweet family in the ward, and I was dying because I ate like 7 pancakes 2 hours earlier. Then we had some good lessons, taught Camila the last lesson before her baptism, and a less active who is thinking about coming back.

Thursday - I went with Elder Oroche, he’s a Peruvian, the zone leader, so I had an intercambio with him today while his comp did the baptismal interview. But we had a really good day, taught like 5 lessons, found a couple new people to teach, then we were teaching a cool young family, (Evangelicos- I don’t know what that is in english.  We taught them at night and called a taxi to get us but we were far out and got home like 9:40 cuz the taxi got lost, but it was fine because we got to know the family a little more after the lessons.

Friday - well not much happened today, we were mostly just contacting all day, oh haha and an investigator gave us a taste of our own medicine. We forgot we had her for Wednesday in the morning (but we had district meeting) so we went Thursday and set up a charla for today, and she wasn't there this time. But yea then we contacted all day and set up a lot of lessons for the next week.

Saturday - The baptism!!!!!!!!!!! So we went to the church in the morning and filled up the font for the baptism at 3, then Elder Holland (he was here before me) came up and we all chilled for a bit until the baptism. Then we got there and she showed up a little late, and she’s shy so she didn't want to take pictures.  But I snagged some when she wasn’t looking. Then we went to the hospital ward and helped the Hermana’s with an open house, we gave the baptism tour since we just baptized, it was cool. I had never done that before.

Sunday - well Camila was confirmed which is awesome!! but unfortunately we didn't have any other investigators come. We were waiting for 5, but they didn’t show, and Amalia, the other one with a baptismal date wasn't in Durazno so we couldn’t. But we taught a new investigator today right outside his house, he’s 20 and lives with his parents and brother, so this could be a cool family to teach! 

Monday - P-DAAYYYY haha this is my first actual p-day for like 2 or 3 weeks. It’s nice, I needed a break from everything. But I don’t think we have too much planned for today, just stuff.

Well this week was interesting, it was really good and not at the same time, well no it was good. We haven't had too much success with our current investigators, other than Camila who got baptized yesterday!!! But we contacted a lot during the week and set up a lot of appointments for this coming week, which we will enjoy! Also haha my comp is awesome, we honestly just crack jokes all day, we are serious when we need to be, but when we don’t need to be, we’re not! hah I’m having a great time here right now, I’m not sure that I want it to end but I know it will. I’ve already been here 3 weeks so I’m half way there. But oh well, enjoy it while you can right!!

(also there’s a really good song on the LDS youth website called “what family means” listen to it!!!!!!!!!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsd3nEMTWrM

Love you guys!!!  

Elder Grigor

Elder Grigor & Elder Merino 

Strolling through Durazno

Elder Grigor (he's so tall now) 

Camilla's Baptism!!!! 

Just chilling before the baptism 

The open house 

Oh man- no words for this one!!! 

We all love this kid so much!!!