Back to Suburbia

Well, another week has come and gone.

This week we had a meeting up by where the mission home is. It was really strange. I forgot what not being in the ghetto looks like. None of the signs were in Spanish and there was some sort of store called Starbucks. It's weird how different our area is. Nobody has extra money to spend so it's just a lot of fast food restaurants and grocery stores. And places that sell tires and rims. Mexicans love rims. They put them on anything with wheels. But it was just strange to be back in a place where people have extra money to spend on things like lattes and restaurants that don't have a drive through. We rode back with the English elders from our area and one of them said it was weird to actually be able to read all of the signs in the stores. I didn't realize how most of area has signs only in Spanish. That'd be weird if you were an English elder here.

Overall, we're doing really great here. Me and Elder Chipman are now a well oiled mission machine. We've smoothed out a lot of the bumps in the companionship and are pretty used to being together now. The Lord has been blessing us with a lot of success recently. We have one person right now with a baptism date, the woman Elder Chipman found on the bridge, and we're hoping that we'll have six people by the end of the week with a date. One of them is a family we've been teaching, a mom and her three daughters. Their brother is a member and we're hoping that they'll commit to be baptized soon. The mom and three of the daughters came to church on Sunday and they loved it! Please pray for them and for all of our investigators!

Overall I'm just having a great time here. It's just a blast being a missionary. I'm really glad I'm here. I love working especially. I start getting antsy if I have to sit through long meetings without teaching lessons or talking to people on the street. It's weird how quickly I adjusted to that. When I first got out the days seemed really long. Now they don't seem long enough. It's also great just to learn about the gospel. I have a much better understanding of the gospel now that I have to teach it every day. Being on my mission has really taught me to look for the purpose behind why the prophets included something in the scriptures or why the apostles included something in Preach My Gospel. Preach My Gospel is really a fantastic tool. I'd encourage all of you back home to study it.

The weather here is also awesome. Of course, I'll be eating my words in a couple of months when I'm burning to death.

I'm sending you some pictures from my recent trip up to Glendale. We drove by the Cardinals stadium, and I also got to get a picture with Elder Jones from our stake. He told me Pres. Baer (sp?) had asked him to get a picture of us together when he got here. I also took a picture of my tag for those who are interested in that.

Love you all, thank you for all your prayers for both me and the people I'm teaching!

Elder Grasley

P.S. My new favorite scripture is Ether 12:27. It's really helpful for when you confront a problem and you just remember that the Lord gives you weaknesses so that you can be humble. Then there's the promise that if you trust in Him and His Atoning Grace, your weaknesses will become strengths. I've been applying that principle to some of the areas where I tend to struggle and that promise really is true! I love the positive perspective that scripture gives on trials and struggles.