Well, this week was full of trials. I still feel kinda gross. I'm not sure what it is but if it sticks around I'm gonna finally cave in and go see a doctor. For now though, I'm persevering despite feeling gross. Basically, I've chosen finding new investigators over feeling entirely comfortable.
The one good thing I got this week was my new companion. His name is Elder Peterson. He's from Rigby (near Rexburg), Idaho. He's got about a year and a half here in the mission, and he was in the MTC with my last companion, Elder Chipman. He's the new district leader here, too. He's a pretty awesome missionary. His Spanish isn't fantastic, but he's really good at getting people to open up and talk with him. He asks really good questions. It's really helping me improve my teaching a lot. I've already noticed a difference in how people respond to me. He's also super chill and patient. He's had his fair share of trials here on the mission, and you can tell he's really gotten good at taking things in stride.
Unfortunately, he came in a completely terrible time for our area. We just had an awful week by our normal standards. Our one guy with a baptismal date had a big problem when he broke up with his member girlfriend. He's 15 and she's 14 and so her parents made her break up with him because she's not 16 yet. It was a little frustrating that they didn't do that when the relationship began. We're giving him a few days to get over it before we go back there. The one good thing is that he wasn't interested in the Church because of her. We found him in the street and he didn't even know his girlfriend was a member until after a couple of lessons with him.
Other than that, we just had a week of going by a lot of appointments we'd scheduled that almost all fell through. We normally get around 20 lessons a week, but we only got 13 this week, and some of those were with members. Of course, we did get 200 contacts this week. The mission standard is 140 a week. 200 is crazy. I felt bad for Elder Peterson because his first week in the area was just a lot of contacting and very few lessons. Of course, he's only served up in the northern part of the mission with all the white people for the past year and a half so he probably doesn't even know any different. We also didn't have anyone show up to Sacrament Meeting either. We're just hoping that the Lord blesses us this week. It really did feel nice yesterday when someone just invited us into their house right there on the spot. Trials really make you appreciate your blessings a lot more.
I almost forgot to mention that my old companion, Elder Chipman, is now the Zone Leader here. He replaced Elder Miles who got called up to be AP. They made him pack up all of his stuff just to move one room across the apartment. It's kinda weird living with him now that he's not my companion anymore.
Tell Pete McClure thanks for the box of moon pies he sent me. That was a nice surprise.
Anyways, hopefully next week brings more blessings. This week has just been about persevering despite whatever difficulties. That's why I chose to use the Gladiator quote as the title. It's a good one for when you just have a lot of stuff to do and you can't be entirely comfortable while doing it.
I'm exciting for General Conference this weekend. It's always a great opportunity to hear from a Prophet of the Lord. Hopefully we have lots of investigators come.
Love,
Elder Grasley
P.S. I'm sending some pictures of my new companion. He has a Snuggie. And the potatoes symbolize Idaho. (I don't know what the banana symbolizes.)
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