June 24: 1st week of Step-training

Queridos amigos y famila amada,

It's been a pretty crazy week, with transfers, going to Spokane for the last time (ever), having the mission conference, district meeting, the big world broadcast, etc... But we still had a pretty good week! Our Bishop managed to plan an interview for one of our investigators right after sacrament meeting, so she went and we weren't even planning on it! That was a nice surprise. We were hoping for quite a few more lessons on sunday, but we managed to plan out seemingly our entire next week, and so we should be pretty busy in the next few days. Well, until saturday. We haven't really planned that far ahead yet! But I'm excited. Elder Heward said he didn't mind having lots of appointments too. :)  

Elder Heward is a good missionary, I had been praying that if I ever trained, all I wanted was that he would be humble. He's open to learn, asked more questions than I did as a missionary-in-training, and he's excited to Brazil. He recognizes that while he was called to go portuguese speaking in another country, he can learn a lot here in the Spokane/Kennewick Mission, and he feels learning how to teach in the english language has really helped him. I'm still getting to know him, but while he's not perfect, he's doing his best to become a good missionary, which is all we all ask. I'm pretty proud of him. :)  

I never realized until this past week, how blessed I've been to learn how to teach in two languages. While many people learn how to speak another language, I remember how hard it was for me to teach in english for the first time. It's not quite as easy as you would think, to think of teaching in spanish, and then translating it to english. As a missionary speaking spanish in the United States, and still teaching the english speakers in our area, I'm going to become bilingual on my mission, and I'm going to be able to have the teaching skills in my own language when I go home. And I won't have quite as much trouble speaking english when I go home. Even if while I'm here, I do sometimes say a spanish word to english speakers here. (e.g. I said something to Elder Heward in spanish to see if he'd understand, and Ryan, and investigator, said "what?" I responded unconsciously saying "Oh, disculpa estaba hablando en espanol". He then said, "wait you said habla-what?" I was confused, and Elder Heward told me I was still speaking spanish. I felt pretty embarrassed. :) )  Well, another week passes by. One more week in the Spokane Mission. And an adventure starts in the new Kennwick Mission!

 

Thanks for the love everyone. It helps me have the strength to keep searching for all those children of God, ready to accept the Gospel. :) Hope you've seen that broadcast from yesterday, and you're all going to become better member missionaries! Con amor,

Elder Grant

For pictures I've got a picture of me and Elder Orellana in front of the car, and my last look at Spokane.