June 22, 2015

This week was not as expected.

This week went way better than I had expected it to go. My companion is awesome and we are doing a lot of work here already. It is a little bit difficult still because we don´t really know where everything is or who people are but we are finding a lot to do. I also really like that there are two companionships here. Makes things way more fun. The church building is huge for only being a branch. It is as big as a stake center...for Argentina. Probably because the church was anticipating a change that is hopefully going to happen here in the next few years. Announcment in the next few months if we are lucky. However I cannot share exactly what it is. I will let you all speculate on that one.

I got super sick on Saturday night. I am pretty sure it was food poisoning from our second lunch that day with some investigators from Bolivia. So all night I was in the bathroom with terrible stomach and saliva filled dry heaves. It was at that moment Mom that I realized how much I miss You and McCall. However, Elder Medina did a pretty darn good job at playing Mr. Mom. Made me soup, moved my bed out in front of our heater. He is super awesome and really funny. The other two elders here are really great too. One is from Oakley, Utah. Elder Reidhead. He is on his last transfer right now. His companion is Elder Rivarola from Paraguay. Once again, a really cool Latino missionary. I guess I am just lucking out with having my first two Latins be super cool.

I don´t really have any worries with the language anymore and I feel really comfortable teaching as well. An experience that happened a few times this week was, We had just finished teaching a less active family and we left and Elder Medina told me that he really liked what I had said, or the commitment that I had left with the family, or the way I said somehthing. I thanked him for the compliment and asked what it was that I did because I legitamitely had no idea what he was talking about. He told me that I was joking because I had just taught like a picture perfect lesson and all. Once again I told him that I didn´t know what he was talking about. It took me a minute to understand what was happening. I wasn´t teaching or speaking. He told me that I was talking like a native with perfect Spanish. (A promised blessing in my patriarchal blessing). I was teaching 100% by the power of the Spirit. The reason that I did not remember what I had said is because I wasn´t the one saying any of those things. I just remember feeling such a powerful feeling during our lessons. A feeling of boldness and strength. A feeling of being a representative of Jesus Christ.

I want to challenge each one of you to find an experience like that this week. Share your testimony with boldness to a friend, colleague, or family member. Testify of the truthfullness of the Restored Gospel and the love you have for it. The blessings that you and your family receive from it. And how they can benefit from it both temporally here on the Earth and Spiritually in the life to come. I can promise you that as you do this, your testimony will grow tremendously and you will realize just how powerful the Spirit is.

I want each of you to report back to me on this in email within two weeks. Don´t be afraid to share the Gospel.

I love you all and would love to help you and whatever it may be that you need help with. However I cannot help you if you do not tell what it is that you need. So email me!!! I love to hear from you all.


With love,

Elder Grant M Salinas

Argentina Rosario

June 16, 2015

Well the computer keeps kicking me off so I can´t get a good email written.

This week I got transferred to a little town called Cañada de Gomez. It is about an hour and a half from Rosario. So about the same time as San Lorenzo. My companion is Elder Medina. He is from Peru and has two transfers more than me.

Not much to say about investigators or anything cause I don´t know who they are yet. But pray for the people here! :)

It is crazy to think that after this transfer I will already have 6 months on the mission. Time is just flying by! I found out today that for the next transfer, there are only 11 missionaries going home and we are getting 40 new ones! So President Zanni said in his letter to us that there is a good chance that just about all of us will be training. So that is exciting and a little bit nerve wracking. But we will see how that goes.

You should tell Parker to send me an email or something! It is so crazy to think that he is already home! Jeff too! Time flies while in the service of the Lord I guess.

I hope all is going well with you guys. Let me know if there is anything that I can do for you.

June 8, 2015

This week was gold!

Okay so first I will start with our investigator Pablo. We have been teaching him for a week now and he is progressing like crazy! He told us that he used to get these panic attacks like super bad. He wouldn´t want to go in the streets because he would just start shaking and literally think he was going to die. He went to a doctor like 3 times a week but it was 400 pesos every time (about 40US dollars). Then he told us that after he started meeting with us he hasn´t had anymore of those attacks. We are teaching him really well and the Spirit is there so strong every time because he actually keeps his commitments and he asks really good questions. So then we got around to asking him about baptism. Before we could finish the invitation he already accepted. Then we had the feeling to ask him what would be a good date. I don't know why we did it that way but we did. (This lesson was last Tuesday) He started thinking, then said, "Well, tomorrow I am busy but Thursday or Friday I could probably do it! We were so excited when he said that! So we told him we need to teach him a few more things and put a date for the 27th of June. I hope I will be here for that because transfers are next week.

We had a BBQ on Saturday with the family Arario. Well, one of the Arario families. There is like 4 of them in the branch. At the beginning of the transfer we had a lesson with them and gave them a challenge. If they read the Book of Mormon and prayed everyday as a family, we would have a BBQ with them. Well they did it! So we made a bunch of empinadas and some good beef!

Para que sepas Taylor, Yo probé la morsilla. Not my favorite.

This is the last week before the mission splits. So it will be Argentina Rosario and Argentina Santa Fe. I´m anxious to see where I end up.

Not much else has happened this week. Keep being great everyone! And do your Family History!!

This is a painting given to Grant from a member who loves to paint

June 1, 2015

Okay, the story of the week!

So our window in our room sits facing the little walkway to the doors of everyone that lives in our little complex, so we see all of the traffic that goes through there. Well one of the guys that lives in there is a cop. He is about 50 or 60 and a heavy smoker. All day long he is going back and forth to make his smoking breaks, coming home from work, or trying to sneakly leave with a new little girly friend every single day! He finds a new one every day! So one day we were planning on what we should do with one of our investigators whose name will be, lets say, Jane. We haven´t been able to meet with her for the past like 5 weeks. So we were contemplating dropping her from our pool of investigators. Well right then we looked up at the window cause we heard someones keys jangling and we see her leaving with the cop. She didn´t know that´s where we lived but now we know her little secret. I think she needs a little more time to be prepared to listen to our messages more. So we ended up dropping her. However we have found some great people to teach and we are super excited for them!

We found a bunch of new awesome investigators though! So I am super pumped for them! Waldo, Pablo and Family, and Vanina and Family. Pray for them!

Here are some pictures from the week.

Elder Brown and I made empanadas this week! They were way good, easy to make, and a ton cheaper than that chip dip recipe Taylor brought home! Also, a birthday cake that a member made me!

***The last 4 pictures were sent from a sweet sister in Argentina via Facebook.  I received a message yesterday afternoon:

Hi sister Lauralyn, I am sister nidya Arario, your son is here with us, we are having an Argentino bbq. He is funny and a good missionary!

I love being able to hear from the people that Grant is serving!

May 25, 2015

So we got a referral from a member to this guy named Carlos. He just showed up at the church right before a meeting we had and this guy in our ward gave him a tour, taught a little and this investigator was like, "yeah I have a Book of Mormon, I know it is true. I know that it is here to support the bible and not to replace it." Then he said that like he wants to get baptized. So We set a cita (date) with him for the next morning. We are stoked! We know that he is an answer to our prayers. So we get to his house the next day and see him outside smoking a cigarette. Not a big deal, we can easily overcome that with him. We go inside his house and oh my gosh! I wanted to turn right back around. He has two big radio stations going at the same time with some lame religious talk show on. He has all of these jenga blocks set up in a religious arrow on his table. Just weird. Well he is also training in karate, tai kwon do, and some other thing so he has all these bamboo weapon sticks. Well he is showing all of those and telling us about the symbolism they have to the bible. Super crazy. Then he says he wants to show us his tatoos. Were like, okay, so he takes off his shirt to show us the tattoos that are on his arms. (Why did he have to take off the shirt? I have no idea.) Then he shows us one which of the world, and another of a balance scale. He tells us it represents Jesus Christ. Right after that he shows us another bamboo stick, gets in a ninja karate kid stance and starts beating himself with it. hahahahahaha it took everything I had to not just bust up laughing! I thought I was going to die inside it was so hard not to laugh. Well then he calls the radio station and demands to be put on the air. So they do and he starts calling the people and the Dj to repentance because what they are saying is offensive to God and that the second coming is happening. It was great. Well then he hangs up and sits down and tells us that he is listening. I kid you not, 5 seconds after he said that he practically teleported over in front of his computer and started showing us pictures on his facebook. Only to hear the radio dj start to apologize to his audience for the crazy guy that was just on. Oh boy, that lit a fire under this guy. He jumped up and called them back but this time he spoke the radio representative and was just yelling at him like crazy and beating his chair with a horse whip thing. It was quite the event. So yeah, we didn´t really teach him much but we set another cita with him for tomorrow. So we are going to take the member who gave us the referral to go with us to see how crazy this guy really is.

I sent you an email Subjected Project for Grandma Mann. If you could forward that to her and my email as well.

This week was good. Not much happened other than our reference. haha

Let me know what you would like to hear. We will probably be on here a bit earlier next week cause I think we have a zone activity.