Week 72 | Photos Only

Week 71

Talofa 'aigaga

This week has been great! I've been learning lots of Samoan which has been pretty cool. But I've had my work cut out for me trying to help Sister Ainuu with English. We have just been working on vocab which has been fun, but we have been working on grammar which is a whole new ball game. If anyone has some good ideas of how to teach English I am all ears. I can teach the gospel, but I never thought I would become an English teacher too. 

So at the beginning of this week I got to spend some time with the West's granddaughter which was a blast! The west's are senior missionaries that work in the mission office and I adopted them as my grandparents! I just love them so much. And so I got to take their granddaughter out with me on splits and we had so much fun! So that was a big highlight. 

This week was filled with a bunch of new faces and trying to get into gated communities. Because this is one of the nicer areas everyone lives up in the mountains locked away in gated communities where they can't be found. So it has been a real struggle to find people to teach. But because of Christmas and light the world, we have been doing a ton of service. I am trying to pack our schedule full with as much service as we can find. I don't know what it is, but when you get out and serve the blessings just come streaming in. 

Oh, sister Ainuu and I went on a rather stupid adventure. And I have to admit it was totally my idea. The sisters dropped by one night to drop something off and after they left they texted us that there was a javelina in our complex. So I asked Ainuu if she wanted to go find it. She was really scared but I got her to come with me because I wanted to get a picture! And so we found one by the dumpster, and then from behind the dumpster comes another one and then another one.... there were 6 or 7 of them! But they were just walking along the back side of our complex, so like idiots we followed them, and then this lady said that they won't hurt me and that I could get close to them. So I did just that. After following them from a distance for a while, they stopped in this little bbq area, so I decided to just walk up to them and get a quick picture. But it was dark, so I used the flash. I kept the flashlight on so that the sudden flash wouldn't freak them out, but then when I got close they all turned around and just stared at me... for a long time. They were not happy. Luckily they didn't do anything, but I found out later that what the lady said isn't actually true... I don't actually know. But I had an epic stare down with a pack of javelina like 4 ft away from me. Super scary!

Oh and another funny story from this week! Not funny at the time, but is the perfect description of my LIFE!!!! So we stopped by the church earlier this week to use the wifi and go to the bathroom we weren't there for long. But when we went back to the car the door wouldn't open. We have one of those push start button cars. So I never actually take the keys out of my purse to start the car. And then I realized that I left the keys in the bathroom... of the locked church. So we tried to think of some people that would have keys to the church. So we start walking to a members house and on our way there it starts raining. Just a little bit, then harder and then it just started pouring! Oh my goodness, then to make a long story short we had to go everywhere to find another set of keys and when we got them we had no idea that it only worked for one little side door! Ours gets us in to all of the doors, but we had to walk around trying every door, and of course the very last door was the one that worked. Luckily we were able to just laugh about it, I was just so tired and done that I just thought it was hilarious! Story of my life right there!

Well, I promise my whole life isn't a big joke, or at least I try to tell myself that lol! Another highlight of my week was our sisters meeting. I have never done this anywhere else, but in my new zone, all the sisters meet together after district meeting for a big sisters comp study. It was AMAZING! The spirit was so strong and I was able to get so many answers to questions about people I am teaching and what to do and how to help them. And we were able to go over ways to improve the difficult aspects of teaching. I feel so much better, even though I am not the worst teacher, I just got so many ideas of new things I can try and ways to invite the Spirit! I don't even know how to explain, it was just awesome! 

I am super excited for this week, we have our Christmas conference this Thursday which will be super fun. And we have some pretty fun lessons set up for this week. So it should be good, lots of positive human interaction I think. 

Hope you guys are all doing well! Miss you lots! 

Sister Grant 🌵

Week 70 | Where Am I

Hey fam,

Where do I even start... Well I'm not in Pima anymore. I actually got pretty homesick for Pima this week. I felt really bad for my comp, Sister Ainuu. But after a little bit I was fine. This area is great. It's a lot  different. It is a really wealthy area, so people here are pretty normal and I just feel a little out of place. Like, I don't even know how to act around normal people anymore. But it's fine, I decided that I really don't care. So they will either love me or hate me. I am gonna go with, they are going to hate how much they love me hahaha! 

Sister Ainuu is so much fun! We have been partying it up over here on the west side! She is from Samoa, her English is really good, but she is still learning. I normally understand her just fine, but some days are harder than others. But the good thing is that we both laugh in the same language, so we do a lot of that. 

It is nice to be settled into my own place and not just bumming it out of my suitcase. So that is a plus! And I am super excited because today we got some Christmas stuff, so that will be fun do jazz things up a little. We decorated these cute little stockings today and we found a mini Christmas tree! 

This week was just a lot of meeting new faces and trying to learn where everything is. Nothing too exciting.  Hope you are all doing well. 

Sister Grant