This week was pretty awesome. A lot of good stuff happened.
We had a baptism yesterday. Our investigator Licet is now a member of the Church. The baptism was really cool. Her boyfriend came down from California to do the ordinance. Apparently they've been dating for 9 years! He only just recently got reactivated in the Church and ever since then he's been helping his girlfriend along too. She made the decision to study with us after doing a whole bunch of study and research on her own. We're just waiting now to see when they get engaged. Licet asked me to do the confirmation, which was cool, although it definitely was a little nerve-wracking giving a blessing in Spanish over the microphone in front of the whole congregation.
So that was awesome. We have another set of baptisms coming up over the next few weeks. This ward is really starting to pick up speed. I love Estrella. I feel like I belong here.
We had an awesome meeting on Thursday this week. We went up to the meetinghouse that's across from the temple they're building here in Phoenix. That was cool. I'd never been to a temple under construction before. They're just barely pouring the foundations, so it still wasn't much to look at, but it felt good to be there and see it going up.
The meeting was really good too. It was for the mission leadership and a few other people who got invites. President said that those who weren't in leadership who got invites would probably be training next transfer, so I'm hoping that I was just there by some fortunate mistake. Two guys came down from the mission department to train our mission. It was nice to hear what they had to say. They basically just told us that if we focus on helping people develop faith in the Savior, to repent, and to make and keep covenants everything else will fall into place. It's funny how easy it gets to overcomplicate missionary work. Really it's just about bringing people to the Savior and His Atonement. This week has been nice just putting our focus on that.
Something that they told us really caught my attention. They said that Preach My Gospel was designed so that each lesson had a central "story" or narrative to follow. It made me think about how missionary work is basically storytelling. I think previously I was thinking too much in terms of "teaching" which means that the person who is taught has to fully understand all the information presented. And really it's pretty easy to get frustrated when you view sharing the Gospel like that. But storytelling is different. It's less about the information that we get across but the moral or the lesson we learn from it. And that's how the Savior taught, in parables and examples. Really it's not the information that necessarily changes people; it's accepting it as part of our "stories." I guess in that way sharing the Gospel is done in the same way that everyone has always shared their culture and values. Only the difference is that Gospel isn't just like any other story, but it's the story. The story of Christ and His Gospel is the central narrative to the entire history of mankind. So as a missionary, I'm a storyteller, but of the most important stories that can be told.
That perspective's really helped me out this week. I've felt a deeper emotional connection with those I teach and what I'm teaching. When I first got to the mission we were discouraged from using a lot of analogies or things that distract people from the key doctrines. But I think now I'm seeing that sometimes the best way to communicate those doctrines is through stories or analogies. True, you can really go overboard with analogies (I think I'm going to kill someone the next time I hear the Book of Mormon compared to a cake), but used correctly they really enhance your teaching. So that was a big learning from the meeting. It's made me a lot more relaxed when I teach.
They also taught us a new finding strategy that's been really successful in other missions. What they do is they just offer to give blessings on people's homes and families. So you just go into their house and say a prayer and bless the home. I'm pretty excited to start using it. Mexicans are going to eat it up.
We've been finding a lot of cool people recently. A lot of good referrals have been coming our way. It's nice. I don't really know why it's happening but I'll take it.
Well, hopefully the weather where everyone else is is as good as mine. It's so nice down here. I guess I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
Love,
Elder Grasley
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