On the Rise

My new companion is the best! It's Elder Zeledon! We were in the same district in the MTC and now we're companions together here in Encanto. I always thought it'd be cool to be companions with him and here we are.

Elder Zeledon grew up in California but his family's from Costa Rica. He was baptized when he was 18, so he has some experience on the receiving side of missionary work as well. His favorite books are Lord of the Rings and we also both like the movie King of Kong. We were having a race to see who would stay in their baby area the longest, which I obviously won.

The other new member of the apartment and new Zone Leader is Elder Catlett, Elder Cheadle's new companion. He's from North Carolina and has really bright red hair (I promise pictures soon). He's also hilarious. He's a really good missionary and has great Spanish. Basically, we've got the best apartment ever.

Elder Zeledon and I set the goal to reach President Taylor's vision and get two baptisms in our area in November. We feel really good about that goal and we're working hard to accomplish it. The only obstacle is that we don't know who those two people are yet! We have a handful of investigators right now, but most of them probably won't make it to baptism in November for one reason or another. So we're putting our faith in the Lord and trusting that He will guide us to those He has prepared. This week we mostly spent tracting and we've found some good people. Now we just have to see who will be their for their return appointments.

We're also trying to work better with our members. Last night we taught the first lesson to a family in our ward. It's an idea from Preach My Gospel that I'd never actually applied. The Spirit was strong and we left them with two copies of the Book of Mormon to give out. Really members can do so much in missionary work that we as missionaries can't. Weird guys in shirts and ties aren't the most relatable of people.

I'm also still working with the new training program. It was President Taylor's idea. He felt that a lot of the missionaries who already have time in the field could benefit from the new training program, so Elder Zeledon and I are testing it out with a handful of other companionships. Our goal is, just like it says on the first page of the training booklet, that Elder Zeledon will be able to train a new missionary by the time we're through.

Love you all,

Elder Grasley