We were able to get out and WORK!!!

Hello Famliy,

Sorry I kind of lost track of time responding to other emails and forgot to write you guys first but I’m going to try and write something super fast in the 20 minutes I have so it might be a little more messy than normal haha. 

So this week I got my new companion Elder M. He is from Chiclayo, Peru. He is actually from way out in the country in a little tiny town but his brother shared the gospel with him so he came to the city to be able to go to church. He in a convert of about 8 years I think. So right now he lives in Ferreñafe. Which is like 20 minutes from the city. And he goes home in two transfers so I’ll be with him until the end of his mission just like Elder G.  He and Clair will be getting to Chiclayo on the same day I think haha. He’s super cool and a hard worker. He loves to work and that makes me happy. This week was awesome because we were able to get out to work right from the start and I can really notice the love than he has for the people and the way he connects with them is unreal, I hope that maybe by the end of my mission I will be able to be more like him in those aspects. I know that I will learn a lot from him. 

So with Elder M. we are trying really hard not to be late for things. There were a couple of times when he just took off running so I ran too to keep up with him. We ran so much that even one pair of my pants ripped so I will have to sew those back up haha. I had heard of him running in some of his other areas to appointments but I wasn’t sure if it was all the time or just once in a while but no I know that it is very often. We are getting along great and I’m really excited for this time we have together. One time we were up at one of the highest parts of our area. We had to go to our house first to change into our suits and make it to the church. But we were not going to make on time so he just took off and we ran down the whole hill basically. What normally take about 15 minutes we did in 5 minutes. We were able to make it to the baptism on time and everything went great. I was able to baptize Angela this Saturday and it was great. It’s been a while and it really felt good to help her make this covenant in her life. Sunday she was confirmed and now she is a member of the church. We are now working on her aunt who is living there now and hopefully with her we will be able to complete their family. Everything is going great and I am loving mission life. 

Sorry it’s so short but that was pretty much my week, other than that we just taught and had lots of fun together. My companion is really funny. He could be one of my favourite companions. 

Love you guys lots, hope you guys have a great week. Thanks for the package too, I got it this week and I loved it, the shirt was great. I haven’t been able to eat the candy because I have a bad canker sore but I will enjoy it soon. You guys are the best. 

Love you lots,

ELDER GRIGOR

Elder Grigor at Angela's baptism 

Hakuna Matata! Love the things he sees in Cochabamba 

Elder Grigor having a little mustache fun.

Thanks Clair for sending them to Bolivia! 

  

The aviators are the best

Love seeing the Canadian flag in the background

and all of his post it notes with his goals on it. 

I was "hooked up phat".

May 19th, 2014 

HEY Y’ALL

So we had a pretty good week this week. It was kind of tough with my companion getting ready to leave and all but we were able to work for about half the week. We just had fun being together for the last week. We were able to go out an teach a lot and actually were able to find some new awesome investigators so there is a bright future here in the area. I’m sure with my new companion coming we will be able to find even more. They called us last night to tell us the changes and almost every companionship in he zone had a change except for one companionship. There are lots of great elders coming too who were just recently dropped as zone leaders so they will help a lot especially with obedience and work ethic. My new companion is Elder M. he is from Peru and speaks Quechua also. There is one area in the mission where they speak lots of quechua and he was there for about 9 months I think. Everyone say he is a great worker and a great missionary so I’m really excited. Plus he’s only got a little bit more time than I do so he won’t be too trunky. Right now I’m with Elder J. just until our companions get here tomorrow I think. We work great together, one time we went on splits and we taught the law of chastity and tithing to an investigator. She said that those were her 2 favourite lessons. We love being together and teaching. We’ll probably do some more splits this transfer. 

So this week not much happened, Elder G. had to prepare his luggage and a few things before he left so it took away from proselyting time a little but it was all good. Saturday the whole day we were out of our area. He had to go take pictures in the morning and then he had his final interview with the president. That was the first time I had been in the mission home and Sister Dyer "hooked it up phat" as Elder J. would say, with brownies and she also gave me a custom mission wallet that I had always wanted. She saw my wallet and saw that it was falling apart so she gave me a wallet that says “Mission Bolivia Cochabamba”. Well it’s more of a money clip but it’s really cool. An elder had them all sent to the mission the Christmas before I got here and I always saw elders with them and thought it would be so cool to have one and now I finally do. It kind of made my day. Then after that I got to go to the temple with my comp for the last time with all of his group and the president. It was pretty awesome. Lots of the workers asked if I was going home too but luckily I still have lots of time. And that pretty much took up the whole day. It was a fun time, makes me want to be able to do that with all my group and end together. I’m still thinking lots about if you guys come to pick me up or not, I’m not really sure what I want to do. I keep thinking and I will ask the president when he comes soon.

So I had an interesting experience this week. We have an investigator named Angela  who we’ve been teaching for a while. I remember we set a baptismal date the first time we talked to her but she said she wanted to get baptized in May. We were kind of confused as to why and never really asked. Being impatient we just asked her if she would do it earlier and I think we put a date in April. She just kind of agreed but wasn’t to thrilled it seemed like. The time passed but she wasn’t able to come to church and we had to put a new date on again and again. What I realized this week is that we had put a baptismal date for the 24th of May and she said yes and after that moment she has come to church. And if I remember correctly that was the original date that she wanted for her baptism. I still don’t know why or how it worked out this way but in the end she is going to be baptized around the same day that she wanted earlier. I guess there was a lesson to be learned there for me.  That we shouldn’t put baptismal dates for when we want to, but for when the investigator wants to. Like it says in the PMG videos we should not drag the people to baptism and always take into account the things that they really desire and not just ourselves. 

I’m excited for this week and for all the fun times I am going to have with my new companion. I’ll be sure to send lots of pictures and tell you all about him next week when I find out a little more. 
Have a great week. 

Love you guys,

Elder Grigor

Paintball with the Elders 

"I went to set my camera to take a pic of the zone but it

 fell over so I went to set it up again but it took the picture"

"The old zone, there were lots of changes in the zone."

" Trunky elders playing games at the Pensionista's place" 

Elder Grigor playing around with the settings on his camera. 

Elder Grigor at the Cochabamba Temple 

"Dropping our comps off at the hotel. I gave the elder on 

the right my slinky because he really liked it and would 

always play with it so I gave it as a goodbye present." 

It was great talking to you guys

May 12,2014 

Hello Fam!!

Well talking to you guys yesterday was great, it really made my day. I can’t wait for the next 227 days to go by so we can do it again!! I think lots will be different the next time that we talk. It will be weird that’s for sure. 

Well this week was kind of difficult, my companion is great and we are getting along great but he is a lot more focused on going home than he is on the mission. There are so many things he wants to do and not many of them include missionary work. Having a companion who is about to go home is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I have a feeling that this week is going to be even harder but we’ll see how it goes I guess. I’m going to try really hard to keep him on track and have his mind focused. He is probably going to be gone this Saturday and I’ll be getting a new companion next Tuesday probably. This transfer is going to be weird because it’s only 4 weeks. Then the next one after is going to be 8 weeks because of the new president that is coming. He gets here at the end of June I think. He seems really nice, I saw a picture and he looks very young, maybe 55. His daughter is coming here to finish her mission in august. She is in Guatemala but she’s coming here to finish with her parents. He is lawyer, he has a successful firm in California. He is selling it to come on the mission. It will be fun to meet him. 

So this week... Well we honestly didn't do much. On Tuesday we hiked up to the highest part of our area agin with the veterinarian and she helped us out by doing some service. We knocked on doors and offered to de-parasite (don’t know what the exact word is in english )dogs. There are millions of dogs here so everyone said yes and it was a cool way to share the gospel. It wasn’t too successful in some ways though, everyone wanted the vaccination (I think that’s the word) but weren't too interested in the message that we had but well see how it goes. We are going to keep visiting up there. Wednesday we had a zone leader conference all day and that was fun, mostly we just talked of the things that we need to do better on so we taught that to the zone. We will see how they respond to it. It’s pretty difficult sometimes to get them to do what they should but with love and patience I think it will come along.

A cool experience that we had was with one of our investigators called Angela. She is about 15, she was a referral from the ward a little while ago. We went and we were visiting her and she was understanding everything really well. She accepted the invitation to be baptized really easily and she was really excited. But as the weeks have passed she has never been able to come to church. I guess she came a lot before but was never baptized so we were trying to get her in that rhythm again but she would never come. Nothing seems to work so we went over this week and just talked and tried to figure out what was happening. I think that worked because we went to pick her up the next day and she was there waiting with her less active cousin to come to church. They had a great time and all went well. Hopefully she keeps coming so she can be baptized. It’s something that we have been struggling with a lot  here. We have so many investigators who want to be baptized but they don’t come to church or they can’t because they don’t have permission or they aren’t married yet and its kind of tough. But all we can do is just keep going and hope for the best. Sooner or later they will be able to make that commitment. 

Well I think that is basically all. Hope you guys have a great week and if possible I would love a frisbee :) Have a great week and I will be talking to you all soon. 

Love you all

Elder Grigor

Elder Grigor taking a selfie

Gorgeous sunsets in Bolivia 

Walking along the dusty roads 

Someone knows where I live

May 5th, 2014 

Hello Family

So something random that i forgot to say last week. I was on an exchange and was talking to a less active family is in another area and they asked where I was from and I said Canada because most people have never heard of Alberta or even Calgary so then they asked me which part so I said I was from Calgary and then the guy told me that he has a sister who lives there and that his brother in law is a pilot. CRAZY RIGHT?? I guess he works for a company called Jets and his last name is Hawkins or Hawkinson I think, I didn’t really understand but I thought that was really coool. Someone who actually knows where I live.

So this week was really good, my companion wasn’t as trunky so it was a lot easier. We are actually getting along really great right now so I really want to enjoy these next two weeks. Something we’ve been doing lately is playing soccer with rocks. It really helps when we are kind of upset or not in a talky mood so we just have to kick rocks through the other persons legs to score. It’s a good time. Next saturday he is going to the hotel to stay with his group and prepare to go home so I think I will have a white companion for about 3 days because there is another elder whose companion is leaving too so we’ll probably be together until they do all the changes.

So I’m really excited to Skpye you guys this week but I don’t know at what time or where, if you tell me a time I will be at a computer and ready to Skype. When does church end and when will you guys have time? I can borrow a members computer or just go to a little internet café.  But it’s going to be awesome. I was thinking maybe around 3 or 4 in the afternoon here, would that be ok?? Let me know.

Well like I said I had a great week. I’ll tell you about a few things we did. So we went to the lagoon alley with all the stake to clean and do service this Wednesday, it was great to go out and help the community especially with so many members and people helping out. The only bad part is that one of our investigators kids got lost and that was a problem but they found him and all was well. I hope you got the pics.

Another cool story is when we went to a place called villa el mar which is the highest place in our area and maybe in all of Cochabamba. It’s about the same height as the Christ statue. It took about 45 minutes to walk up there, but it was worth it. There are only about 4 members that live up there and we want to change that so we went to go talk to the people. One awesome experience was when we met a girl named Maura. She lives way up there and had never talked to missionaries just other friends from university. So we went up and taught the restoration and about the Book or Mormon and she loved every minute of it. She was so happy and even told us that one of her friends had asked her to pray and ask god about the church. She said she did it around Christmas time and said she had an amazing dream about the temple but didn’t really know what it meant. Then she went on vacation and kind of forgot about it but she thinks it’s an answer from god. I think we are going to make weekly trips up there now to know the people more. The best part about Maura is that she normally works until 7 on Saturdays but for some reason decided to come home early. If she wouldn’t have done that we wouldn’t have found her. God works in mysterious ways that’s for sure.
All is going well here in Bolivia. Love the mission, love the comp, love the area, love the Lord. Can’t wait to talk to you guys!!!!


Elder Grigor

Hard at work 

Taking a break for a picture 

Back to work 

That would be a chicken's foot in his mouth! 

Elder Grigor in Bolivia 

If we could all be like Jonny

April 28th, 2014 

So to answer a few questions first, I think I forgot the last week. Dad asked me why we always help the veterinarian and about Jonny and why it’s so easy to share the gospel for him. The veterinarian is in our ward and always is helping us out and visiting with us so sometimes she just calls us and asked us to come over. Here in Bolivia things are pretty relaxed and they don’t really care who does the surgery or who makes their animals better they just want it done. And Jonny, I really don't know why it’s so easy, I’d love to know his trick, I think he’s just no afraid to share the gospel with everyone. Being the hairdresser (who you will hear about later ) his friends, people in the street, he’s just really open and invites everyone to hear the missionaries and they do!! 

I am really looking forward to Skype you guys in a couple weeks, I still don’t know where I am going to do it because where we go for internet doesn’t have webcams so I’m going to have to figure something out. And yes my companion is from Lima and leaves in 3 weeks. It’s going by really fast.

I had a really good week. I’ll share some of the cool experiences and things I learned. One, well this was more of reinforcing something I already knew and that is to always follow the prompting of the spirit, no matter what. One cool experience I had with that was on Wednesday. We were walking to an important appointment and we were in a hurry because it was something we thought was for sure and we had just barely confirmed it a few hours earlier. So as we were walking I had the impression to knock on the door of a referral we had recently received. I just thought we could see if they were home and make an appointment for another day, so we knocked and the lady was home and had lots of questions. We were able to talk briefly and respond to her questions and make an appointment to come back. As we went to the other appointment we found out that it had already fallen through. I was glad that I was able to act on that prompting we were able to help her. Yesterday she asked us if she could be baptized. I know that we needed to go in that moment and the Lord put us in that path to be able to remember and knock on her door. 

Another cool experience was actually a referral form Jonny. She is a hairdresser beside his house and he asked if she would like to have the missionaries over. She said yes so we went over and she was super receptive and really liked the message. Unfortunately with many people here it’s really hard to find them the second time and they don’t come to church. So the week we contacted her she didn’t come to church and we couldn't find her all week but this Saturday we were able to find her. She felt so bad that she hadn’t been home and she explained why she couldn't come to church that day and said that for sure she would be there this Sunday (yesterday). So we were there and we were waiting but she never showed up. We were kind of disappointed but then she showed up right after the sacrament and then stayed for the rest of church and loved it. She also has a big desire to go to church and learn more about the gospel and hopefully very soon she will accept a date for her baptism. Just from one small invitation from Jonny to listen to the missionaries while getting his hair cut made it so that 2 more people were able to know the truth of the restored gospel. If we could all be like that I wonder how many would come to a knowledge of the truth. 

This week we also had a talent show which was super awesome. We had two acts and they were hilarious. I will try to describe them more or less. I got videos but won’t be able to send them. You’ll just have to wait 11 months. So one was called the worlds fastest robbing. So I was the gringo tourist and I was walking and then I get hit briefly by two people. It doesn’t look like much happened but then a guy comes in and puts us on pause and says that something was fishy and that something else happened. So we rewind our act and he puts us in slow motion and lets the audience watch what really happened. We show our act in slow motion and see that what really happened. A bunch of people come over to rob me and beat me up and there’s a little girl that comes and steals and an old lady and then a tiger come out (we rented a tiger costume) and starts to beat me up and rob me and it was really funny. I wish I could send the video. I don’t know if that made sense but that’s what we did and it was awesome. Everyone loved it. We definitely won the night

Well that’s was my week. I’m excited for another great week. 

Love you guys lots. Have a great week. 

Elder Grigor

Breakfast of champions-pancakes and lemon pie.

 It was for an Elder's birthday 

At the vet's place

The vet's daughter likes walking under my legs 

The water jug at my new pensionista's place 

Our group for the talent show 

The tiger costume