I'm going back to Cochabamba

Elder Grigor has had some challenges sending pictures since the beginning of December. His memory card keeps getting a virus on the computer that he is using down in Sucre. Now that he is going back to Cochabamba we should be able to get some pictures next week. That will be a great day. 

We got this in a separate email from his main one home: 

"So I kind of fixed my whole picture situation and moved all my pictures onto my flash drive and they are all there. The problem now is that somehow my flash got a virus.... There is a member who can fix it for me though. I will stop by tonight. I hate computers down here....."

Here is his email from this week: 

Hello Family, 

Well I am going back to Cochabamba. Honestly I didn’t really want to but I guess it’s for the best. I really just wanted to stay here and have Elder Callahua and just finish out here but I will have a 5^th area. I am going to Tiquipaya 1 in the Tiquipaya zone. My companion is going to be Elder Noriega. He is from Texas so I am finally going to have a gringo companion which will be really weird. I will just want to talk to him in English the whole day but I am going to try really hard to speak in Spanish all the time. I think he has about 8 months in the mission. I’ve only talked to him a couple of times when I was in Cochabamba with him. I am just going to be senior companion which I am happy about. I just want to finish my mission peacefully with no responsibility and just be able to work really hard until the end which is what I will be able to do now. I think it will be a great time, me and Elder Callahaua got along great so I hope I get along just as well with Elder Noriega. I leave tomorrow morning to go back to Cochabamba. 

This week was really great with Elder Callahua. We are working really hard and I think that it has really helped the area. We have a couple of people ready to be baptized in February and the zone in general is getting better. We have seen lots of progress in the zone this month especially in having lessons with members. Since the beginning of January as a zone we have had almost 10 lessons with members present every week. I feel really content with the work we have done here and I think it is a little better than when I got here. Every one is working hard and really trying to achieve the goals. I think raising the standards of excellence also really helped and focusing a little more on having more members present. I am really excited to go to a new zone to try and contribute there and help in whatever way that I can, it should be fun. 

Well I don’t have much time because I was looking for pictures and deciding which ones I will use for the final slideshow, I still need to pick like another 10 pictures, I will try to do that next week maybe. Thanks for sending me those.

Well I love you guys lots, 6 more weeks and I should be on my way home, crazy how fast it goes by, this last transfer is going to go by really fast but I am going to try and make the best of it and just take it one day at a time. I finally finished the New Testament and I am about to finish the Book of Mormon. I am going to try and see if I can finish the Doctrine and Covenants so I can be ready to come teach seminary with you soon. 

Love, 

Elder Grigor

I'm healthy and happy and glad to be a missionary.

Hello Family,

Well we had another week full of rain and clouds but it was awesome, I really like all of the cloudiness because that way I don’t get burnt at all. There are so many times where people will just tell me that I’m really burnt so I try not to be in the sun too much. I just get destroyed being in the sun all day walking around. 

I wasn’t with my companion too much this week, every transfer we have to do splits with all of the missionaries in the zone and we haven’t had much time this transfer to do it with conferences and such so we had to do 2 last week and then 2 this week. On Tuesday and Sunday we also did splits with the ward members to visit more people so I was really only teaching with my companion on Thursday and Saturday. It was kind of weird. We are getting along great though and lots of work done here in the area. 

I feel the lord was really helping us this week and was directing us to lots of house of less active members and old investigators. Doing splits with the members is really helping the area because they have been able to show us houses they visited before with the missionaries and less active members so we have seen lots of benefits. We had a goal with the zone that everyone could reach at least 6 lessons with members and 6 with less actives and recent converts and most of them were able to reach it. They were a few that couldn’t so we are going to raise that goal and try to motivate them even more and hopefully see the numbers and success keep rising. We are really happy with the zone, we have some great district leaders who are doing great at motivating their zone and see how well they are doing. 

Well this week is that last week of the transfer, next week I will be letting you know if I am going to have one final area or if I am going to stay here. I probably will just stay here but there is always a possibility I guess. I have been a zone leader for a long time. Maybe they will give someone else the opportunity. I’m happy either way. 

I think that is all I have for this week, everything went well. I’m healthy and happy and glad to be a missionary. 

Elder Grigor

We are often tired, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

January 12th, 2015 

Hello Family,

Another week more and another week less. We had a pretty fun week; we had our vacation in Cochabamba on Tuesday. We used to go Tuesday and have the day to go visit and do things we needed to but now we just go and have the conference right away and don’t really have any time to go visit or do any of that but it’s ok. I think it’s better that way so we don’t waste as much time. It was a really good conference. I got to see lots of my buddies from the group that I hadn’t seen in a while. It’s weird at the beginning of my mission I saw the missionaries who had more than 20 months and I thought they were so old but now that I’ve made it to this point we still feel like the young ones. It doesn’t feel like we are going home in a couple of months. I wonder when it will hit us, maybe when we are on the plane. You guys should be getting my itinerary this week; I think the secretary said he was going to get all of the flights this week. I try not to think of it too much, except when a plane flies over and to bug my comp I throw up a peace sign and say “see you in 2” haha.

Wednesday I had one of my last interviews with President Hansen. We mostly just talked about the zone and how I was liking my area. I think I will stay here for my last transfer. At least that is what I am hoping for; I just want to stay here. I asked what he did to finish his mission strong and he said “well It was easy for me because I was the assistant for the last 10 months of my mission, I had to work hard.” The advice he gave me though was to just take it one day at a time and seek the will of the lord so that is what I have been trying to do this week.

On Thursday the assistants came down to do exchanges with us so I got to be with my hijo amado again for a couple of hours and work again just like old times in Colcapirhua. It’s amazing how much he’s grown. He was one of my favourite companions. His English is really good now. I hope you guys will be able to meet him when we come down. We will have to plan on a Monday or something to go out to lunch with all of them. If they are close to the city I’m sure they would get permission to go to lunch.  That would be fun I think.

Well we are back in our house now. We had been looking really hard and the day we got back from Cochabamba we went looking for more houses but we couldn’t find anything. At night around 7 we had an appointment fall through and we didn’t really know where to go but we had an idea to go to an old investigator to see if she was home. When we were about to knock on their door we realized that the door beside it had a sign saying that they had rooms for rent. We went in and they were perfect for the sisters, close to our pensionista, half the price of the other houses they were looking at and brand new. They are the first ones living there so everything worked out great. Plus we have 2 new investigators because we started teaching the home owners and they were really interested. It’s really true that the Holy Ghost guides us in our lives. Big or small, finding investigators or finding houses he is there to guide and direct us.

We are working hard, we are loving the mission, we are getting wet lots, we get along great and we are often tired but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Elder Grigor 

By small and simple things

January 5th, 2015 

Hey Fam,

Well we are still living out on the street. The sisters haven’t found a house yet so we are living with the elders in the other ward still which is fine. We have lots of fun there with them.

It was a pretty normal week, we had to go help a couple of people move and bring new things to their houses but it wasn’t as much as we usually have to do. We had a pretty relaxed week which was nice. We were able to get lots of members to come out teaching with us also, we even got to do splits. I think that it was the first time that I did splits on my whole mission with members because they almost never have time. But we are going to start to do it more often now that my companion knows the investigators and the area.

New years was pretty normal, since we were in the other house and in a nicer neighbourhood we couldn’t burn our old things to celebrate New Year’s.  We just hung out in the house and went to sleep like usual. When people asked us how we spent our New Years we just told them that we slept. For some people it was a big deal to stay up and wait for it but it really wasn’t important for us.

This week it rained a lot here in Sucre. We got soaking wet multiple times but it was fun and we learned a little lesson. We were walking in the street and it seemed like no one was home and no one wanted to talk to us. We started complaining a little about how hard it was and how tired we were and they we saw the huge rain clouds coming and we knew it was going to pour so we look for someone to teach so we could go inside but there was on one. When it started to pour we stood beside a house to take shelter. After about 5 minutes a car pulled up and opened up the garage and invited us inside to get out of the rain, we took that as a sign and started to teach. The man who let us in was really thankful and receptive to the message and we were thankful to not be out in the freezing rain. The next day while reading Alma 37 I came across a couple scriptures that I really liked: "6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. 7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls." I realized that God sent that rain storm so that we could find a new person to teach and bring the message of salvation to more of his children. I think every day I understand just a little bit better.

Well it was another great week, another great time with my companion and another great week in the mission. I’m not trunky, we are working and that is the way I’m going to end.

Elder Grigor

(P.S. I bought a new memory card but didn’t get it until Sunday because the sisters bought it, so I didn’t take pictures but this week I will next week for sure. )