Elder Justin Grigor : I love my new area!

October 31st, 2016

Tuesday - we went down to 33 and stayed in the house so we could catch our bus.

Wednesday - change day!!! So I met my new comp, his name is Elder Zacarias, from Peru, my 3rd latino comp and my 3rd Peruvian. It took a 4 hour bus ride in the morning to go to tres cruces, (the big bus station) then we took a 3 hour bus to Rocha, then a 30 minute bus ride to La Paloma, right on the coast. We got to our home and we are here in white wash so we don’t know the area. We went to buy food because I think the other missionaries took or ate everything. We unpacked, but we got a ride from the 1st counsellor who never comes to church because his wife has a lot of health problems and he takes care of her, but he tries to do what he can for the missionaries.

Thursday - so a huge storm came through, it actually knocked down a tree and it hit a house fairly close to our house, so we were told to stay inside all day. We didn't have a lot of food to make because it’s the end of the month and we don't have money because of traveling, so the president said he would get us food, but he never came because it was pretty bad, so he told us to grab food and he would pay us. We went out on our bikes and I almost got knocked over a couple times. But we survived, then slept all day, but we checked our area book and phoned all the "investigators" in the phone and we don’t have anyone to teach.

Friday - so we went out in the morning getting to know the area, just close by though. We did a couple contacts, then rode our bike to the branch presidents house, which took us 30 minutes because we got lost soooo many times. Then he told us about an area that we have called La Pedrera and he told us to not go there because if we did we would get sent home (figuratively). We rode around a couple areas just outside of the city called La Aguada and Costa Azul, and explored the beach for a while, riding around in the sand. It’s beautiful here, just a little windy and cold right now, but also there are soo many cool things to buy for pretty cheap.

Saturday - we decided to go check out La Pedrera, which was 12 kms away from La Paloma, and we did some contacting along the way. We found a lot of nice people that invited us back, but while we were going I saw a sign that said Pueblo Barranca restaurante or something like that. I said “let’s go check this out, so we biked down this forrest trail for bout 1 minute and then found a wooden bridge that led to this exclusive resort, so we checked it out, and there was nobody there, not even the owner. So we checked it out but I forgot my camera on the way so we didn’t get pics. Then we went to La Pedrera and it’s beautiful. It’s a little old style town, on the beach, and apparently whales breach there too, but we didn’t see any. Then we headed home and it took forever because my bike was broken from before and I have to tighten the bolt every minute or the pedal falls off. But we got home then went to bed

Sunday - so I planned the lesson for today (because there’s only 8 people that come... if were lucky) but I planned the wrong one, but good thing I gave the right one already in Vergara, so I didn’t have to plan. But church was cool, president couldn't come so we conducted, presided, blessed and passed, then gave talks. It was interesting, makes you think more about what your really doing. Then we decided to head back to the resort to take pics, so we rode out there, and again every minute I was fixing my bike, and I would try to catch up to my comp and tell him, but he would just pedal faster and smile while doing it, I actually got pretty mad, because I was dying only using my right leg to pedal and trying to catch up to him, then I pulled over to fix my bike, rinse and repeat. But we made it took some pics, then contacted a drunk dude in the street, and he told us his life story and we put a baptismal date for him, hopefully he remembers though. Then we went to familia trinidad, the 1st counsellor to give them the sacrament.

Monday - woke up at 5:30 today to go up to Chuy, one of the other areas that’s on the border with brazil and everything is cheap up there. So I bought a couple gifts for everyone.

Well in spite of what everyone was telling me I actually love my area. We get 2 lunches a week from the president, and there’s actually a lot of people, and I heard the assistants wrong. They called me to talk about La Paloma and they said Vergara is a lot smaller than La Paloma, because this area is actually huge. The only thing is, with people- it’s like Hawaii here, a vacation destination, and I’m sure not too many people want to talk to missionaries on their vacation, but this is my favourite area so far.

Love Elder Grigor