Well, my life as a missionary is about to significantly change. On Saturday I got a call from President Taylor. He told me that the Lord had chosen me as a new trainer here in the mission. I'm super excited! I seriously did not expect that I would be training a new missionary this transfer. I've spent the past couple of days thinking about who it's going to be and what it's going to be like training. It's weird thinking that as I type this there's someone in the mission home whom I'll be training tomorrow.
Yesterday I went to a meeting for all the new trainers. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve have started a new program for training missionaries and so we had that meeting to introduce us to the new program. The program doesn't launch until August 1 but our mission is apparently a little ahead of the curve. The program is twelve weeks, which means I'll be training and staying in Encanto for the next 3 months. I really love the program. It's designed to help the trainee take control of situations over time and it really focuses on helping individual investigators with their needs. I will have two hours of companionship study from now on, instead of the regular 1. That means 4 hours of studies in the morning! That's a lot. But it'll really help new missionaries learn everything they need to know.
The meeting was really awesome. I felt the Spirit quite strongly. It really impressed on me how important training is. I have to be a good example because whatever I do is what my trainee will do. President Taylor was great in the meeting. He's funny and yet very spiritual. He asked us to remove words like "greenie" from our vocabulary. He said that's something Elder Holland asked all new mission presidents to do. Elder Holland said the word "greenie" demeans a missionary as an ordained servant of the Lord, which is certainly true. The new program is very much focused on getting trainers to treat their trainees as equal partners in the work, rather than some sort of liability.
Elder Cheadle will be leaving me. It's kinda sad. We got along super well and had a great time together. Too bad we only get 6 weeks together. Still, he's got bigger and better things to do. I'll be taking over his calling here as district leader. Our district is just my companionship, the Zone Leaders (which is now just Elder Chipman since Elder Ray went home yesterday), and the sister missionaries in our ward. It's tiny but I'll be able to really concentrate on helping the ward.
We have one investigator family who are really progressing. They're great. They just love the Church and already have a bunch of new friends. The mother and her daughters are going to be baptized on the 13th if all works out well.
As I mentioned, Elder Ray went home yesterday. He was a really awesome missionary and a funny guy. He especially helped us all to better live our purpose as missionaries by inviting people to be baptized. We're gonna miss him.
So, tomorrow in the morning I'm going to meet my new trainee and companion. I'm excited. Also a little nervous. I just got a lot more responsability and training can be tough. Still, I'm committed to doing my best. I just hope my trainee likes me.
Other than that things have been normal around here. We had a really big thunder storm a few days ago. It just poured and the thunder set off the car alarms in the parking lot a couple of times. I really like storms like that.
The big thing I've learned this week is that when I love and try to serve others, I don't have as much time to worry about myself. The mission is about learning to serve and help others and forget yourself. It's a hard lesson to learn and I'm still not very good at it. Still, I hope I'm getting better.
Love,
Elder Grasley
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