Coldest Winter

It is gloriously warm here. It's been in the 70s or so for the past few days. It feels like May in Oregon. Much better than last year when it was freezing and rainy this time of year.

 

This week went really well. After my split with Elder Catlett last week I decided to change up the way I find people. I've started just asking people if we can sit down and teach them on the spot. Surprisingly, it works pretty well. Mexicans are much more welcoming of strangers than Americans are. "Hi, we're some strange twenty year old guys who go around in white shirts and ties and talk about religion, can we come into your house and talk with you?" "Sure, come in." We found a surprising number of new people this week just by doing that. I wish I would have tried that earlier in my mission.

 

I guess a lot of the changes come from my studies. I've been studying the examples of faith in the Book of Mormon and the effect that the faith of specific people has on the world. Specifically I've been looking at Alma and the sons of Mosiah. It seems like whenever we act in faith, the windows of heaven are opened to bless us. Sometimes I want the miracle so that then I can have faith, but really it's the other way around; we have faith and then the miracles happen. So I've been trying to act in faith more often this week and it's worked really well.

 

We've had to walk for the past few days because my tire went flat and I didn't have a spare. So we got to pretend like we were Elders in Mexico. It's different walking. More relaxing. A little less rushed and hectic. We found some cool people that we wouldn't have found if we were biking. We also had a crazy guy yell "Los mormones" and start walking after us. We ran away. Me and Elder Zeledon joked about how he probably just wanted to get baptized.

 

New Year's was nice. I went to bed at 10:30. New Year's is a big deal for Mexicans. There were parties and music in the trailers next to our apartment until like 6 in the morning. Also hardly anyone showed up for Church, which is now at 9am. The combination of New Year's and the time change was apparently too much for most people. Other than that I had a nice nap and ate some really good meat. We also found an awesome lady on New Year's who explained to us that your body is like a glove and your spirit is like your hand and when you die the glove and hand get separated. That was something I'd never heard outside of the Church. She also apparently has a strange ability to sense when people are going to die.

 

Well, I'm excited for the new year. It's gonna be good. Hopefully it'll bring a new area and some new experiences. I feel like I'm starting to get this missionary thing down a little more. This next year will definitely be the time to shine.

 

Love,

Elder Grasley

 

P.S. I've been reading the new manual on George Albert Smith. He seems awesome.