Elder Tyler Grigor : It never hurts to take a chance

Well this week not much happened actually. I with give a whole overview basically. Well Monday like you know, we went to Tunari up in the mountains and I got super burnt, like probably the worst burn of my life, seriously. I am still super red and my face is pretty raw because my face is peeling for the second time now. Tuesday the Zone Leaders thought it would be better if I didn’t go out in the sun during the day so I went on splits with Elder Vasquez and we did the finances for the zone and then went to the offices. So all day Tuesday I just kind of tagged along and didn’t do much. While I was gone though my companion and Elder Hul went to visit an investigator that we have. He always comes to church and his brother is a member but he isn’t and I never really knew why. With my other companions they just said that he doesn’t want to get baptized and that his parents won’t let him. I always thought that was a little weird and always wanted to talk to him and see what’s up so I set an appointment for Tuesday. Even though I couldn’t go my companion went and they started talking about baptism and if that is something he wants to do. He said that it would be a great idea and he just turned 18 on Thursday so he can decide for himself and doesn’t need his parent’s permission. I thought that was super awesome and he is really excited to get baptized now.

Then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday they told me I had to stay in the house in the afternoon until about 5 when the sun started to go down. So I just chilled and watched some movies that the zone leaders had. One was a video from the MTC when Elder Holland came and spoke, then I watched a movie about Gordon B. Hinckley, and a few other ones that I forget. It was kind of just a boring week and I just did things to pass the times like watching movies and reading.

I also had to go to the dermatologist on Thursday so they could check out my face. The lady said my face was horrible and she gave me some nice creams and lotions to put on my face and now its feel a lot better. We waited like 2 hours to go in for a 5 minute appointment. Quite frustrating. So because of all that we didn’t have a chance to get much work done but it was still a pretty good week. I’m looking forward to the next week; hopefully it will be a full week where I don’t have anything that will get in the way of doing missionary work. In the last month I don’t think I’ve had a full week because of me getting sick or my companion getting sick or my companion running away and stuff like that. It will be really nice to have a full week where we can just find and teach. Next Sunday we also find out transfers. The President told me already that I’m staying with my companion in the same area but they are still fun just to see where everyone else is going and what they are going to be doing and everything.

One cool experience that we had this week was visiting an investigator named William. He has a wife and 3 kids. Right now we are really trying to find fathers and families. We went to his house on Saturday and he wasn’t home and then Sunday we decided to go back and really talk with him for the first time. An appointment fell through so we decided to go and visit him. I don’t know why but we just went to his house and it was the national "no car" day so almost everyone was home it was great. So we ended up talking to him, well more like he talked to us for over an hour telling us how he wants to change his life and be a better husband and father for his children and he is super open to finding a way to change his life. Well at that moment it was super easy to testify of the gospel and the power it can have in our lives. I feel that he is ready to accept the gospel in his life and he is really eager to learn more and how he can help his family. And we found him only by walking down the street and just felt like we should knock on his door. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I am being guided by the spirit because it’s just something small and usually comes in the form of my own thoughts and sometimes I don’t just recognize it but I just do it. That’s something I’ve been learning on my mission; just to do whatever comes to my mind and trust on those feelings and promptings. It never hurts to take a chance.

Now a funny story. So the picture I sent of me in the door is when we were walking back from a lunch appointment with a member. We always get the 4 Elders together so we were coming back and Elder Vasquez thought it would be funny to knock on this house because it’s pretty old and looked like no one was home so he just did it as a joke. What they didn’t know is that I was sneaking around back to see if anyone lived there, luckily they didn’t so I went through the back door and then started making some noise so they thought someone was coming. Then I came and opened up the door and pretended to be a confused investigator opening the door. They had no idea and thought that it was someone actually coming to the door. I thought that was really funny. I laughed for quite a while. And yes my face is super red.

Well that is my week more or less, great to hear about you guys and see the pictures and everything. Love you guys, have fun this week, oh and it’s a lot cheaper to send packages to the states from here so can you send me the address of the cabin so I can send things there?? Talk to you guys soon!!

Love Tyler (Elder Grigor)

"I got super burnt last Monday because I forgot sunscreen.

Here are the stages.

Super red, kind of tan, then peeling. Super fun....