Hola!!

It was another great week in Grand Rapids. It has warmed up a bit and I was even able to go out in short sleeved shirts a few times this week! I spent most of my week on trade-offs in the Spanish area so I spent a lot of time brushing up on my Spanish. I never thought that I would say this but... I really wish I would have paid better attention in my 2 years of Spanish in high school. But I feel like I am picking it up quickly and was able to say enough to get me by. But here is an update on all the happenings of the week!

Monday, we got to go bowling. The guy working was having problems with his credit card machine so he let all of us bowl for free! It was pretty awesome! Gotta love free stuff! We also taught a new investigator named Adria and she is awesome. She has met with missionaries in the past and hopefully she will continue to progress. 

Tuesday, I was in the Spanish area with Elder Free. He is an older missionary who is really good at Spanish and he was helping me to learn a little bit of the language so that I would be able to talk to people throughout the day. I got to do a baptismal interview for a guy that another district leader is teaching that was baptized on Saturday. We had several appointments fall through but we got to teach a few people. 

Wednesday we had a zone training. We also went and saw a few less-active members and had a few lessons with people. 

Thursday, me and Elder Dunn were doing weekly planning when we got a phone call from a lady at the hospital. She was not a member of the ward but had received our number from someone at the hospital (we still have no idea who) and she asked if we could come and give a blessing to her daughter who wasn't doing well. When we arrived we learned that her daughter was pronounced brain dead just a short time earlier. It was really hard to find the worlds to share with this family as they shared how much anger they had towards God for taking the life of such a young child. After having a prayer with the family I was able to pronounce a blessing over this young girl while her mother and aunt sobbed next to me. I blessed her and her family and really felt the Spirit work through me to say the words that this family needed to hear to comfort them. Then we spent a few minutes talking to the family before we left. It was an experience that I don't think that I will ever forget as I felt like there was so little that I could do when I wanted to do so much more to help this family in their sorrow. Then we spent the rest of the day in downtown Rockford talking to people on the streets since is is warmer.

Friday, I was back in the Spanish area with Elder Bird. We had a lot of fun as we went and met several people. It was a lot of fun and me and Elder Bird thought about grabbing a crate from their apartment and Soap-box preaching downtown since we have always wanted to do that but decided not to... 

Saturday we went to a family history fair at the church with a few of our investigators. It was a great experience for them and I think that they really enjoyed it. Saturday evening we went to the baptism of William (the guy who I interviewed) and Jerry was able to come with us! 

Yesterday was a great sabbath. Me and Elder Dunn got to help with Primary and dressed up as prophets! I will include a picture of me. Apparently I was wearing it wrong and had to fix it after the picture was taken but this will give you an idea of what I was dressed like.

Well I think that is it for the week. We have another busy week ahead of us. There was a mother and 2 of her kids that were murdered this week that were members of our church and they are holding a funeral this week so we will be doing a lot for that but other than that we will be doing a lot of teaching and finding this week!! I hope you have a great week!!

Elder Bloskas