Week 34 | pretending to shower?

Hey hey! This week was awesome. I have been super obsessed with miracles and tender mercies. So last week I got a new journal specifically for all the miracles and the tender mercies, pretty much all of the times I see the Lord's hand in my life, which is a lot. So it's been fun to reflect on the last 8 months and remember all of the amazing things that have happened. One highlight from this week was our stake women's conference. There was a guest speaker who came, her name is Diana Holsher. She was AMAZING. She talked about the Plan of Salvation and she went through each step in the plan and she was just so clear and was able to explain it so well! We brought our investigators with baptismal dates and they LOVED IT! She focused specifically on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. One of the things that she said that really stood out to me was that she said, imagine there was a water shortage and you were only allowed to take 1 15 minute shower a week. Would you miss it, would you miss being clean? Can you imagine anyone passing up their 15 minutes and just pretending to shower? Getting in the shower pretending to scrub the soap all over but never turning on the water? No, that is ridiculous! Most of us don't even really know what it's like to not be able to shower. And then she said, the sacrament is our 15 minute shower. We get 1 day a week that we can wash our spirits. Are we pretending, or our we wasting our 15 minutes in sacrament meeting? It was a strong visual that really changed the way I view the sacrament.The soap is repentance and the water is Jesus Christ. It was really funny, sister Gadd ended up coming to the conference and she texted me before and said she would give me 5 rolos if I matched her. So I gave in. It's not as bad now that we are not companions. She always wanted to match when we were together but c'mon that would be super weird and kinda creepy. Also, she never gave me any rolos. So basically I did that all for nothing! LOL jk

Another highlight from the week was that the shaved ice truck down the street opened up!! And because one of the stake presidency members owns it he always gives the missionaries free shaved ice! It's so good. We get 1 free cup per day. It's so good, but let's be real it's so bad haha! THIS IS WHY THEY PUT ME ON A BIKE!

I am having a hard time remembering what I even did this week haha. Sister Zamora has been sick. She might have a sinus infection, so that's fun. But for the most part we have been trying to spend a lot of time with the members. 1. they are great and it's fun, 2. our focus as a zone has been working with members and helping them with member missionary work. So that actually has been really fun.

Love you all. Hope everyone enjoys their Easter and General Conference!

Sister Grant 

Week 33

What a roller coaster of a week. Transfers are on Tuesday, and my mission president said in the middle of the transfer that he was going to transfer me somewhere else at the end of this transfer. I was so not ready. I love sister Zamora too much to leave her yet. And I love all the people I work with too much. So I prayed super super hard and I emailed President Browning. I was sick not knowing what was going to happen. But we got calls on Saturday and... I AM STAYING IN THATCHER!! Miracle. Really. Every other companionship in the zone is being split up. And most people are training. So it's been a crazy transfer. 

I am so tired. I don't know why, but this week just wiped me out. Mentally, emotionally, physically! It was so funny actually. So we go to our ward mission leaders house every Sunday night. And last night I just walked in and was like, guys I'm done. So I fell asleep on the couch. They have really nice automatic recliner couches. It was wonderful.

This week the missionaries had the amazing opportunity to clean the Gila Valley temple. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. Just going to the temple and feeling the spirit there and receiving the answers I was praying for while on my hands and knees just cleaning every little thing in the chapel of the temple. It was powerful. We didn't use any chemicals. Only distilled water and some rags, paint brushes to dust, and canned air. I mean we cleaned every spec of dust from that room. Then what was really cool was after we finished we got a tour of the temple. Not all the rooms, but the behind the scenes of the temple. So we got to go down into the basement and see all the security cameras. They have 1 extra of every single thing in the temple for any and all accidents. He showed us pretty much everything that makes the temple run. We even got to go to the roof. My favorite part though was that he took us to the top of the steeple! We had to climb like 3 or 4 flights of ladders to get to the top. But the view was so cool. Only a couple people could go at a time because the higher you went the tighter it was. But on one of the levels he had all of us stand to look out the window and then he told us that we were standing on top of the sign that says the holiness to the Lord, the house of the Lord. It was way cool. So I went all the way to the top window and looked out. And from there we could look up from the inside and see the bottom of the angel moroni!

Another fun part of the week was Commodities with the missionaries. I love going to serve there because we get to see a ton of people that we teach and meet others that are being taught by the other missionaries. And we are always just having a good time. We hand out soooooo much food. So we always say that we might not be Jesus, but we sure feed the 5 thousand. hahaha! And we made sure to get pictures with grandma! She is so cute! She is the one in charge and she doesn't let us call her anything else. She even refers to herself as grandma. We love her! And because so many of us were leaving the Gila, we all sang called to serve for her before we left. It was so cute, she cries any time one of us leaves. It was a tender moment for sure, she takes such good care of all of us.

This week felt so good. The sun was so nice, but the air was nice and crisp. I don't know what I am going to do when it actually starts getting hot. I'm not ready. But this week was soooo windy. Like it was 30-40 mph winds for a good part of the week. So that made things fun. 

Another fun thing we did this week was some service for an older man in our ward named Jigs! He is the sweetest! He was in his yard the other day and we were riding by and so we stopped to say hi and he was really upset. The city just bought out the trailer park that he lives in and is going to rip it all out. So he was outside trying to move all of these bricks and stones to get ready to move out. So we offered to help him and he just laughed and didn't think we would because we were sisters. So we said we would bring some elders with us and be back in a few days to move all the stones in his yard. We got there and he was all ready for us. He went out and bought all kinds of snacks, and drinks and gloves for us. He even got a camera to take pictures of all of us helping. So he had everyone who came sign this paper so he could remember the day. It was so precious. He was so happy I thought he was going to cry! And then the best part is that he came to church on Sunday he had printed out all the pictures he took and made copies for all the missionaries and he put it together is a sheet protector and he wrote on all of them so that we would all remember! It was sooooo sweet!

Today has already been really fun. Because half of the zone is leaving we had a big zone breakfast. It was super fun, we all brought tons of food and had a big roast for all the people leaving. It'll be way different, but I'm sure happy I'm staying for another 6 weeks. 

Hope you're all doing well! 

Love,

Sister Grant 

Week 32

I can't tell you how much better this week was. I don't really know what was so different, but I feel almost like emotionally charged or something. I was starting to get pretty burnt out for a while there. But I am picking myself back up and trying to keep going. I feel like my overall stress level was taken down a few notches this week which was such a blessing. There is a wonderful lady in the ward I'm serving in and she is into all the essential oils and things, so she gave me some stuff that will help my headaches and it works wonders! I can actually relax now. I was getting such bad stress headaches that I was getting really sick and my whole back was in 
pain. So I'm so thankful that I found something that helps! 

Nothing too crazy happened this week. But I think the best thing about this week is that I have rekindled my love for the scriptures. For a while I wasn't as diligent in my studies as I should've been. I had just finished the Book of Mormon and I was studying other things and I don't know, I just wasn't getting as much out of studying as I wanted and I just started getting really lax about it. So this week I tried to really dig deep in my studies. I started the Book of Mormon over and I have new questions I am looking for and it has been exactly what I needed. There is so much power in that little book. It blows my mind that by just reading it in the morning turns your entire day around. It doesn't change what happens but it changes your perspective and gives you the strength and the energy to care and to handle whatever life throws your way during the day. 

One of the highlights from this week was that we got to go to Landen's birthday party! He turned 3! He is our investigator's son, he is super funny and so much fun. We gave him a picture book copy of the Book of Mormon. 

Another highlight was that we got the whole zone to come with us to the nursing home we go to every week to do service. We put on a little show and sang a ton of hymns. It was amazing!! I didn't think that so many people were going to come, but it was so powerful. The spirit was so strong! We sang the primary song, Love is Spoken Here, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. It was fun to be there with all the other missionaries. But it was the best to be able to bare such a powerful testimony through music. I think we are going to start making it a regular thing to invite the missionaries to come sing because everyone loved it so much! 

This week has been a lot of finding and working with members. It's fun, but nothing sucks the energy out of you like walking around all day long just trying to talk to anyone who will listen to you haha! We did have some pretty great lessons this week. We taught my dear friends Ruth and Orlando! They are getting ready to be baptized and it's been such a privileged to watch them grow. I mean the change in them is unreal! To see their whole countenance just light up and recognize all the blessings the gospel bring. It makes it all worth it I think. 

I'm also super excited because my ward mission leader took my USB and said that he would put a ton of new music on there. BLESSINGS! If you know me, you know that I get sick of my music really fast and I am constantly finding music and trying to listen to different things. So not being able to change up my music has been driving me nuts. I could get some from other missionaries, but we all have pretty much the same songs. I really am a snob though lol. I have the most music out of anyone else I know in the mission and I am still complaining that it's not enough. So this will be so good. 

Love you all and hope you have a blessed week,

Sister Grant     

Week 31

Okay, this week was the longest week of my life. Each day felt like a month long! I'm pretty tired. But I'll see if I can remember some of the highlights. 

At the beginning of the week I was so sick of all my clothes, I tried everything on and was just not feeling it. But I put on whatever and went about my day. And then we went to dinner and it was the greatest miracle!! A lady in my ward owns Junie Blake (look it up on FB). She and her sister design all the clothes and they have consultants all over the place who sell their stuff. But she just had this big sale, And they were giving away a ton of clothes. Stuff that didn't sell, some stuff had some deformities, but most of it was good, they make new designs and after it has been out for a while they take it down and come up with new stuff. So it was all the old stuff that was still perfect. She let us go ham and take whatever we wanted!! I left with a whole garbage bag full of new outfits!! I am so excited!! Its got a really cute vintage look, all really unique! It was amazing, I thought I was going to cry! It was like Disneyland 😍

I got a package this week from my dear friend sister Williamson back in Tucson. She is so funny, she sent me face masks to do with my companion. One was a tiger and one was a dragon. We had so much fun with that! It was so funny

We went to go teach one of our investigators the other day and we found a cat... 

The poor thing was bit by some animal right on the throat, it was so skinny it's nothing but bones. so we took her... I can't believe sister Zamora talked me into it. But we love that little kitty. We took her home and cleaned her up, fed her, put some ointment on the gash in her throat. We kept her for the day. And let me say, giving her back was sooooo hard lol! I don't think anyone feeds her, so we might give her some food every time we go over there. But when we dropped her off she kept trying to follow us home. She never even wanted to leave our apartment. That was quite the adventure. But it was fun. 

                     

On Sunday, our mission president was in town. Which never happens because we are all the way out in the boonies. But he was speaking at the other stakes stake conference. And we get a call in the middle of church. He wanted to meet with us. So of course I'm freaking out, like oh no what's wrong. But when I went in to meet with him, he said that he had been thinking of me and he saw the name Grant in the program and it was an answer to him that he needed to talk to me. I just started crying and told him all the things I've been stressed about and the things I've been worried about and struggling with. I feel bad, I just dumped everything on him. But he smiled at me and said, I had a feeling that I needed to come and give you a blessing today. Of course I just started crying even harder (tears of joy and relief). I had been contemplating if I should get a blessing or not for a while. But he was able to give me a blessing right then and it was exactly what I needed. What a miracle!! A total answer to my prayers. It helped me to know that God is aware of me and that he loves me. He loves me so much that he was willing to send my mission president all the way from Tucson to give me a priesthood blessing. 

Hope you're all doing well! Have a great week!!

love you all,

Sister Grant