I had a pretty good week this last week. It's been busy and a little hectic, but it overall turned out really good.
This past Wednesday I went on a split with my trainer, Elder Chipman. It was nice being back together. I realized a lot of who I am now as a missionary is because of the things Elder Chipman taught me. It was really fun being back together again. Elder Chipman's really bold. He just tells people like it is. It's nice to be bold as a missionary because then you don't feel any regrets if they don't accept things. You know that you did your best to explain to them the truth. It's like how Alma told his son Shiblon to be "bold but not overbearing." Alma is like the original Preach My Gospel. There are so many good missionary insights in that book. I read Alma 7 in my personal study today, which is one of those chapters that seems to grow with me while I'm on the mission. I understand more the more time I'm out. I like things like that.
I had a really good experience at Church this past Sunday. I came in feeling a little stressed and depleted and over the three hours a lot of that just went away. It's nice to have the opportunity to recharge your batteries at Church every week. President and Sister Beck came and talked to our ward and so we got to be a part of the choir that sang for them. They asked me to sing a solo. Those always make me really nervous but everyone seems to enjoy them. It was tough too because the song with Joseph Smith's First Prayer and that one's a little high for me.
I also got an impression in Church that I should talk to a man I saw. He was in jeans and a polo, and he looked like an investigator. I thought he was probably one of the other two companionships' investigators, but I decided to talk to him anyway. It turns out he was invited to come to Church by our Bishop. He lived in the other Elders' area so I told them to go talk to him. He told them he felt really good at Church and wanted to stay in this Church for good. They even set a baptismal date with him right there on the spot. I was glad I followed that impression to talk to him. It wasn't even something very big. It felt just like one of my regular thoughts, but for some reason I felt a need to act on it. I love how the Spirit works in such very very small, almost imperceptible ways. It's something I'm still getting used to because at times I expect it to be something big and impressive to call my attention. But I like how it's something that you have to listen to and you almost will miss. There's something more precious about it that way.
Today we set up something called a window of heaven. It's when we pick a place to tract/contact and then specifically pray to the Lord with faith that He will put his elect in that area. Then we ask Him how many people we'll find. I like doing them, in part because it exercizes our faith and our ability to listen to the Spirit. And we find better people when we set them up. Today we set one for a trailer park in our area. We felt that there would be two people there. We found the first one when we knocked on the door of someone who had told us they'd have interest before. Afterwards we contacted a lot of people in the trailer park, but none of them really seemed to be interested. We were about to go home for lunch and were making our last run through the streets of the trailer park when we stopped and contacted this one woman. She was awesome. She'd been to lots of different churches and hadn't really like any of them. She'd even been baptized with the JWs, but she seemed to have become disillusioned with them. She told us that just a few days before she'd told her husband that she wanted to find a different church to go to. We gave her a Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment for Thursday. We were pretty excited about that.
I really like listening to the Spirit. It's not easy, and sometimes it's barely noticeable, but as we practice, we really can get better at recognizing that still, small voice. I'm really thankful that I can learn things like that while I'm on my mission. Elder Chipman and I were talking about how there seem to be some things that you can only really learn with time on the mission. Some things that I didn't understand about Elder Chipman when I was his trainee now make perfect sense to me. He tried to communicate them to me, but there seem to be certain concepts that can only be learned by experience. It really is true that the only way to truly comprehend the Gospel is to live it.
Love,
Elder Grasley
P.S. Something I learned this P-Day: don't put your planner in the wash with your pants. It won't end well. ^___^
P.P.S. I'm also growing to love the heat. I get grumpy if I have to spend a lot of time inside. Never thought that would happen.
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