The W.A.N.D

I'm glad everyone liked last week's story. Unfortunately, nothing nearly as funny happened this week.

This week was a pretty good week. We had two days of leadership training, which was nice mostly just for the chance to see all of my friends before they go home. The training was good too. I thought it was cool that my last district meeting was on using baptismal calendars effectively and what did we train on in the leadership meetings? Using baptismal calendars effectively. I always like being ahead of the curve like that.

I kinda feel so-so about leadership meetings. I like the trainings where we learn new things, but there were some less than enjoyable parts as well. I think the most excruciating was the hour of missionaries sharing about how they'd overcome differences and gotten along with their trainees. I talked with a zone leader after the meeting and we found in comfort in that we both didn't share anything during the meeting because we didn't get along with the people we trained. It was nice to find someone in the same boat as me.

I got to see Elder Cheadle for probably the last time. I miss that guy. He's way up in Cottonwood so we probably won't see each other until after the mission. We definitely had a good time together. I also got to say goodbye to Elder Johnston who was my companion when I first got into the mission. I'm gonna miss him too. He always laughs at my jokes.

Things have been picking up a little in the area. We're starting to see some more results. We currently have one person with a baptismal date. She just separated from her husband so we hope that the Gospel can help her in a kinda difficult time.

President Taylor showed a really awesome video clip at the end of the meetings. You can find it on youtube if you search for "missionary work and the atonement." It talks about why missionary work can be so hard and why sometimes we don't have all the success we'd like. I thought it was really comforting to hear that it's something everybody goes through.

This coming week me and Elder Lemon will be performing in Sacrament meeting. We'll be doing Beautiful Savior with me singing and Elder Lemon on the piano. I'm actually pretty excited. I really love that song and I think it's gonna go really well.

We went to the chapel to practice this week for the song and when we flicked the lights on I saw something skittering along the wall. This being Arizona, I thought it was probably a cockroach or some other large unpleasant insect. But we were pretty surprised to find it was actually a small gecko. So we dived around under the pews for a bit and finally managed to catch it. We put it in a jar and took it home to take some pictures before we released it. I like all the lizards around here. Definitely not something you'd see in Oregon.

Love you guys,

Elder Grasley

P.S. I included pictures of the lizard and of me and Cheadle and Johnston.