A Very Happy District Meeting

Dear family,

Great News!  This week I received a whopping .9 cm stack of letters más 2 paquetes (plus 2 packages)!  It was a very happy district meeting.  I’ve taken to singing the Mail Song from Blue’s Clues as the Zone Leaders arrive with the mail.  ♫ Here’s the mail, it never fails...

Well, this week we found a new investigator named Allison.  She is a friend of Génesis. She was studying medicine until she suffered from kidney failure.  She has quite a few medical problems, but has been very easy to teach.  She is really intelligent.  It is nice not to see that glazed-over look in an investigators eyes as you try to explain the Book of Mormon.  "So what you’re saying is the Book of Mormon is a summary of the Bible?" That’s what most people think after we explain where the Book of Mormon comes from.

Junior Apolinario, left

We had an unfortunate gossip incident this week with our little member friend named Junior.  He has a lot of free time on his hands, so he always accompanies us so we can go visit homes with only sisters.  One of the down sides of teaching so many lady investigators, we learned this week, is that Junior falls in love with all of them. Whenever we need to find him, we just go looking in all the homes of our investigators and he always turns up.  

Anyway, he is not all there, so when the ladies did not find him all that interesting, he started spreading stories about how Elder Castro was in love with them and was plotting with some of the members of the ward to come back and marry our investigators. He started sharing his little stories and things kind of got ugly between several of the ward members.  We had to get the stake counselor involved and things are all settled now, but I am afraid we will not be doing anymore visits with Junior.  The ironic part, though, is before any of this had happened I was assigned to give a message on chismes (gossip) for the spiritual part of Faro this week.  Elder Castro definitely made good use of that opportunity.  I found a pretty good scripture in 1 Tim 5:11-15 that suited our situation well.

We went to the Mall del Sur today and talked with some of my old missionary buddies, so hopefully next week I’ll be able to get some pictures of the first weeks on my mission to you guys.  Today was Elder Castro’s penúltimo (2^nd to last) P-day.  Just 12 days left before he flies back to Bógota.  

I was very glad to get updated on all of your adventures since Mother’s Day.  I really like the book you sent, Mom.  A lot of cool dudes talking about prayer.  I have been able to get some good material from it.

Well, I’ll talk to you next week.

Love, Grant

A rather memorable night

Dear family,

I guess I had better send you a long one.

Well, this Sunday we had a rather interesting fellowshipping activity.  Every Sunday here, Amazonas 1st Ward puts on a ward activity called Faro.  Someone gives a little spiritual message and then everyone plays games designed to develop ward unity.  The spiritual part last week was rather genius, in my opinion.  The hermano who is in charge of putting on Faro started the night by telling everyone that this was a night that would change the nature of the ward forever.  The plan was to make everyone start bawling like a baby, thus forging long lasting bonds of friendship by sharing such an emotional, potent mutual experience.  To achieve such an exquisitely emotional atmosphere, we watched a movie called Las Familias Son Eternas (Families are Forever).  It dates back to when all the church media was on little slides and you played a sound track that made beeps so you know when to move the filmstrip. 

The first time I saw this movie I was on an exchange with Elder Ruiz.  During lunch he put this movie on for the family to watch.  As the mamita served us the food, I had to wipe away the tears, while mumbling, "Gracias por la sopita, hermana, fue muy rico" (Thank you for the soup, Mamita.  It was delicious).  It gets to me every time, so when I saw they were starting it at the ward activitiy, Elder Castro and I ran to the back to take cover because we knew an emotional bombshell was coming.  It got to everyone.   Afterwards, Elder Castro and I had to search around the church and round up everybody who had left during the movie.  We would tell them, "It’s alright.  You can go back in.  Everybody is crying." 

After that, to lighten up the mood, we played a game called “Lamanitas,” where if you don’t say a certain phrase right, word for word, people get to draw Lamanite marks on your head with lipstick.  All in all, a rather memorable night. 

Noemi, Joao, Meylin, Dioselina

Do you remember how I told you about Joao last week?  (we don’t remember)  He is the son of our favorite mamita, Hermana Dioselina.  This hermana has always been super active since she was baptized, but she has never really been able to enjoy being a member of the church with her family.  Recently, Joao told us he was interested in taking the discussions.  We are trying to finish up all the lessons quickly because Joao is leaving in a week and a half for a karate tournament in Paraguay.  He spends most of the day practicing, so many of our appointments are in the morning.  The only problem is Joao likes to wake up a wee bit later than the missionaries do.  It takes a family effort to raise him from the dead to come listen to us.  We were very pleased to find out on Sunday morning that Joao had woken up by himself and was already to go to church!  Hermana Dioselina thanked us afterward and told us that being able to chat together with her son on the short walk to church had made her whole week.  It was nice to hear this from her since she does so much for us.

Obispo Rafael Tigre and Carlos Valdez

Well, thank you for the birthday picture.  One of our investigators learned it was my birthday and decided to give me some boxers with a dragon on them.  She told me she got them because she knew I didn’t have any like that.  It was a little difficult to explain why I couldn’t accept her gift.

We’ve just kept busy here in Amazonas.  Elder Castro has taken on the determination to finish his mission running faster than ever.  I hope to hear from you soon.  You are all probably out of school by now, aren’t you?

Love, Brother Birthday Boy

Just pictures...

Hello Family,

Sorry, but I don’t have much time to write.  I figured you would at least like some pictures.  I will try and cook up a nice, long letter for next week.  Je Je

Love Nan

From the top of Nan's house in Las Amazonas, Guayaquil

Grant's new companion, Elder Castro from Columbia



Happy P-day / D-Day

Hello Family,

How are you all?  I guess school is just about over.  When is everyone’s last day?  Are you excited for the break?

We had another good week.  We just had transfers, so it looks like I will be with Elder Castro here until he finishes in five weeks.  Every time we see a plane fly overhead he sighs and says, "Hey, llave (that’s Colombian speak, I think) look, there I go."  It looks like we already have a few people to work with in his last few weeks.  Last night, two of our favorite mamita’s grown children, Vaneza and Joao, decided to start accepting visits from us.  We also started teaching Kiara, Génesis´ cousin.  She is really shy, so we have been trying to find ways to get her to participate more in the lessons.

Thanks for the BYU lacrosse update.  I am glad they did so well.  They have a lot of really good club teams.  I think their rugby team is pretty good, too.

Sorry, but I don’t have much time to talk.  We just got back from a mission-wide leadership training for Elder Castro and we still need to do all of our other P-day duties.

Please send Holty a happy P-day D-Day!

Well, I hope to hear from you all.