Dear many loved ones,
So, our house flooded this morning. Woops. It was only a little bit though. Apparently old washers will sometimes keep running more and more hot water on certain settings... It was kind of upsetting, because it disturbed out study time. We noticed it after only about five minutes of flooding though, so we were able to clean it all up before any damage was made. Still not exactly what you want to deal with, but it wasn't caused by our lack of knowledge (we think), and the house actually looks cleaner now that a bunch of soapy water covered a large portion of the floor (we don't have a big house, so it spread to about 1/3 of the house pretty quickly). Anyway, during my study time, I learned not to go cheap on my washers.
We didn't have any major investigators at church this week, Reynaldo went to tri-cities for "lonche". Lonche sometimes means groceries, and other times means lunch. I don't use it, because in reality almuerzo is lunch, and lonche is spanglish. I don't like spanglish. Anyway, off topic. We found a couple new people this week, and they hesitantly said they're not interested, and invited us back next week. There are many people like that here. People want to say they're not interested, but we as missionaries can see when the spirit is working on people. The hard part is getting people to open up to that spirit. We had to drop Crispin, a long time investigator, because he wasn't progressing. I'll talk more about him later. It's hard for us to stay mad at Reynaldo though, since he's still really awesome, and he's making lots of progress on his divorce papers, so while I most likely won't see him get baptized, it seems he'll be able to within a few months. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, because someone I started teaching is going to make the most important step in his life. :) Haha, missions make you soft, I've noticed. If it doesn't then you're not doing it right. Anyway, onto about Crispin.
So, it's kind of hard for me to measure the hardest things I've done in my life, but dropping Crispin was definitely up there. I was actually on an exchange with Elder Leavitt, the new missionary in Royal City, and we passed by to let Crispin know that we can't keep visiting him if he doesn't make any progress. This is the family that I had actually told Elder Wait in the past, "they're my favorite family to visit!" When I told him that we couldn't pass by if they didn't read, or go to church, or anything, Crispin responded by saying "It's okay, I understand". The only watery eyes in the house were mine. I realized that they were choosing not to change, and that they've been dropped before. They were used to it. I was just another missionary.
I've come to realize that Christ really does love us more than we love him. I've come to realize that, because I feel I've had just a taste of what that's like, as a missionary who loves his investigators more than they love him. I believe the Cruz family do love me. I also believe that they're not ready yet. They are, but they choose not to be. If that makes sense. We're going to keep making contact with Crispin and his family, but they will not be one of our investigators or a priority. It was hard to accept at first, but feeling the comfort of the Spirit... I don't know. I shouldn't feel this way, but I think everything's going to be okay. I've done my best. I can only hope for the best for them.
In short, being a missionary is very hard, and it's also the most rewarding thing in my life. Even if I haven't baptize anyone yet.
Love,
Elder Grant
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