Email 22 - "I´ve never loved Gijón and the awesome people here more than I have this week."

 

"Some of the benches here have pedals for the old people to exercise. Like, for real. That is their purpose."

 

 

 

 "Look closely and you will find a woman walking her cat..."

  "Our piso has no can opener ;)"

 

"President Florin´s a champ when it comes to branch family home evenings led by the missionaries, haha."

 

 

 

 "The picture you sent is the same one I´ve got on my planner for this transfer! So inspired ;)"

 

 

"First three days of Christmas!"

 

 

 

"I love and miss you guys and I´ll see you soon!!! "

Hi family!!

Thanks for all the recordings and the photos!! I love them. I always take pictures of the computer screen so I can look at them later, haha. The camera and my voice recorder took the files like champs. :) I can´t wait to listen to them!

Brad and Kate look awesome in their band pics! Keep rockin´the trumpet and the sax! (F---- plays the sax, by the way. How cool is that? Too bad we don´t have access to a sax here...)

The plan is to Skype at 4:00pm Gijón time on the 25th. I´ll see you then! :D

And THANK YOU for the package! We are having such an awesome Christmas. Our piso looks amazing and we´re loving the little gifts. I don´t need packages to feel love from you guys, but there´s no denying the love coming out of that box, haha. We got it on Friday, so the 12 days started right on schedule. Thank you thank you thank you! (Oh, I´m sure you already know, but that CD you sent is the same concert that Tommy and I went to! So cool!)

We also finally made that pumpkin bread... and devoured it in 3 days, haha. We tried looking for canned pumpkin to make it again, but apparently Spaniards don´t like canned pumpkin, haha.

 

Ok, first thing first. ----- is totally himself again! We looked for him again without luck on Monday, and finally met with him with the Hermanas and Carmelo on Tuesday. There was a very noticeable change in his countenance as the lesson went on. We´ve met with him everyday since and he´s doing super well again. He loved the Primary Program that they put on yesterday and he even cooked paella for us at Gladys´s house after church yesterday!

 

We also met with M--ú a lot this week. She´s not in a very safe place. There are some crazy things happening in the piso where she lives now (she´s renting a room), but that little room where she lives has become a sacred place. There´s so many bad things all around there, but her room is filled with the spirit, and we always feel safe and very close to our Savior while we´re there. It´s incredible. 

 

There´s a 6-yr-old boy named J--n that lives there with his dad on the weekends, and M--ú said that he usually spends his whole stay with her, reading scriptures with her in her room. Hna Zitting decided to bring her comic-strip version of the Book of Mormon with her to give to him, and you should´ve seen that adorable kid´s reaction! It was so precious. So far he loves the story of Nephi and the broken bow. :)

 

Have I told you about R-----o and G--a and their family? They´re old investigators of the Elders that we´re teaching now. During our last lesson with them, G--a told us that she wants us to teach one of her friends (references from an investigator? And we didn´t even have to ask for it? Heck yes!). We´re teaching her now, too. 

 

And E---n´s getting baptized this weekend!! We´re having the Branch Christmas Dinner this Friday (we´ll finally watch the Christmas Devo!), and then his baptism the next day. The only problem we´re having with him now is that he´s falling in love with one of the JAS in the branch (not A--a, who first brought him to the chapel...), so we´re going to talk to him tonight and make sure he´s getting baptized for the right reasons... although I already know that he is :)

 

Oh, and remember how I told you how in the MTC, we were feeling a little frustrated with ourselves until that teacher gave us a pep-talk about progression? He told us that Matthew 17:20 was what we needed to remember:  "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed... nothing shall be impossible unto you."

 

And he explained that, to him, this was a scripture explaining how important it is for us to have faith in our abilities to grow and progress- as a seed. That set the pace for the rest of my MTC experience and helped me have patience while I was there. 

Now that I´ve been in the field for a few months and I´ve finished my training, however, focusing on "progression," rather than "perfection" has been a little harder. I think it´s a lot easier to be patient with yourself when you´re just starting something hard and completely new, but that wears off as soon as you start thinking you´ve spent enough time growing and now it´s time to enjoy the fruits!

 

And I´m seeing some of the fruits :) Helping F---- and M--ú has got to be the most rewarding thing I´ve ever done in my life. And Hna Zitting has told me that occaisionally she forgets that, just three weeks ago, I was still a greenie, haha. I guess that means that I still do things to remind her of that ;) (It actually reminds me of one time when I was with the Brooker family, and little Kent Brooker was telling me all about the history and mechanics of the Titanic. I was super surprised at how, after such a mature conversation, he began to cry after his sister came up and grabbed a toy out of his hand. ..."Oh yeah, you´re only like, 5 years old!") 

 

ANYWAY the point of all that was just that even though I knew I´d be doing a lot of growing on the mission, I´ve only learned this week how big of a benefit it is to grow slowly.

Anyone can tell you that cramming for a test does nothing to help you learn/apply material. All it does is help you pass a momentary trial. 

 

And President Packer pointed out that "in the animal kingdom or the plant kingdom, things that mature quickly have very short lives. The mayfly is a good example. It is born, grows to an adult stage, mates, reproduces, and dies before the day is over. It was an adult about the time it was hatched. 

 

Things that grow slowly live longer. You will find that you will acquire the gospel ´line upon line, precept upon precept.´You may grow more slowly in mind and spirit, but you will learn and your learning will stay with you."

 

If we´re working on it- whatever "it" may be- God will bless us. And sometimes the longer it takes for us to learn our lesson, the better off we´ll be because what we´ve learned will stick and become a part of who we are.

 

And then come the fruits :D (Alma 26:31)

 

We may not be having a lot of lessons of much success out in the streets, but we´re working on it. We´re working hard and I´ve never loved Gijón of the awesome people here more than I have this week. 

 

Whoo boy, that was a long one. 

 

I love you guys so much!!! Have a great week and I´ll see you next Wednesday! :D :D :D

 

Love,

 

Hna Grover

Email 21 - "The reality of the Savior has become a big source of strength to Hna Zitting and me."

 

 "The random Christmas festival we stumbled upon today. Good stuff :)"

 

 

 

 

"Homemade chocolate con churros (kinda) :)"

 

 

 

 

  "Liz, the cute member with her drawing of us."

Hey family!

Good to hear from you all as always :) The photos are awesome! Dad- I had the same idea about recordings. I´m totally up for trying to put them on my device here. We played one of yours for Frank and Malu on Friday in English class, and they were super excited anytime you said "what is..." when you were playing trivia because they knew those words, haha. If you guys want to record talking in simple English, I´m sure they´d love to hear that and try to understand :)

Mom- thanks for the recipe! I´ll try those out. I haven´t seen chocolate chips around here, but I´ll keep my eye out. Empanadas are super delicious. Not usually spicy. Send me the recipe that you end up using! I loved your idea of a cracked vessel letting in light, too. Thanks, by the way, for finding that chapter that talked about forgiving yourself. It´s really interesting, thinking about how the only being with true power to forgive is God, and it only works if we give our wrongs to Christ.

This week was a little tougher than normal- but Hna Zitting and I are doing great as always! We agreed that she´s basically just an older version of myself, haha. So I went from learning a lot because my companion and I were polar opposites, to learning a lot from someone who´s exactly like me. Good stuff. She even read that personality test result thing that I´ve got and decided that it was definitely her as well.

E---- is getting baptized in two weeks! And he is doing amazingly well. The JAS have taken him in and, within the last two weeks, he has seen 6 people baptized all over the area because the JAS keep bringing him. He spent this entire weekend at a conference of JAS, and Carmelo told us how he bore his testimony there of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He´s such a stud.

And as Mike pointed out in his email last week, missions really help you chill out a bit and just learn to take what comes. We´re working really hard, but sometimes "things just tank," and we keep working hard and moving forward anyway!

-----, however, really needs prayers. He was supposed to receive the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, but he wasn´t at church, and we got a really bizarre phone call from him after the meetings. As I´ve said about him before, Satan does not want this man to have the priesthood.

Anyway,after searching Gijón for him last night, feeling more spiritually empowered, guided and protected than I think I´ve ever been before, we pulled him out of a bar and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. We´re giving him a day to sober up and we´re meeting with him and Carmelo tonight.

It was nothing less than devastating to see the state he was in last night, but I know he can pull through and get back on his feet. 

The adversary is very well present and accounted for here in Gijón- and I won´t lie- it´s occasionally very discouraging because it sometimes feels like we´re just standing in its big ol´ massive wake, trying to pick up and fix whatever we can, and then it just comes back around behind us and messes things up again. We´ve been dropped this week by just about every single investigator! 

But, Elder Boyd K Packer said in his talk this past conference that these kinds of things are exactly what we can expect of our day. And then he said that as he looks at these times and the future, he is "overwhelmed with feelings of positive optimism." And while "overwhelmed" with happiness might not be the way I´d describe how I feel about a lot of the things happening, I´m still full of an optimism and motivation that definitely couldn´t be coming from anywhere but a loving Heavenly Father who´s interested and invested in the well-being of His true church and the missionaries He´s sent to take care of it.

As I´ve been reading Talmage´s "Jesus the Christ," the reality of the Savior has become a big source of strength to me and Hna Zitting. And as we´ve been confronting a lot of darkness, I´ve been thinking about what Zac always told our seminary class, "where light is, darkness cannot be." (Thanks, FUZ, for the awesome letter, by the way!!) I´m just grateful for the light that we have, and for knowing that as long as we cultivate it, the darkness that´s everywhere in the world doesn´t even have a chance to enter into us, and with the help of Jesus Christ, any darkness that we´ve allowed in can be cast out forever.

It´s just another testament of how true this Gospel is. There´s no way there´d be this much opposition if it wasn´t the truth!

Sorry this is kinda a shorter one, I´m sure we´ll have a more eventful week to write about next week! :)

I love you all tons!! Thanks again for the photos :D

Have a great week!

-Hna Grover

Just one recording again this week, I promise I´ll get better at recording more interesting, informative things, haha.

I love you tons!!! Can´t wait to skype ya in a couple of weeks :D

Email 20 - "Another Cold, Wet, Wonderful Week!"

Thanksgiving

The guy we´re with here is named Manual, and he was just baptized in Oviedo.

We were talking to him about the baptism we had here, the day before his, for Frank. I pulled out my camera and showed him a picture, and Manual freaked out! He told us that a month ago, he´d been in his store, and Frank was cleaning the windows (he does odd jobs in Oviedo sometimes). The Elders stopped in to say hi to Manual, and then left again. After they left, Frank poked his head inside and asked Manual if he was a Mormon. When he said no, Frank said, "it´s not often that you hear such good things in life. You should listen to those missionaries." Manual continued to listen, and now he´s baptized!!!

We figured out when that would have been, and I believe that would´ve happened in between our first and second lesson with Frank, when we saw a noticeable change in the way he treated us and in the respect he had for us. 

Pretty amazing, huh? :D

Hna Zitting enjoying the green hills of Gijón- a welcome contrast from her last area.

The sign you sent filled up by the JAS :) (young single adults) 



Hello my wonderful family!

Sorry to hear about the bug B-rad had going on, that doesn´t sound fun. And Kate, the other Hermanas and I really loved your football story, hahaha. I hope that quarter at least made Noah feel better! I´m super glad to hear about the Maricials (sp?)!! They´re such a sweet family. That´s adorable what Greyson said about Brad being sick for three days, haha.

So, Hna Zitting and I definitely weren´t disappointed about this week ending, haha. It was a little rough! But even though we hardly had any appointments and had some gnarly headcolds all week from being out in the cold, and even though I got us lost on the way to every visit and locked us out of our piso, Hna Zitting and I have been able to laugh things off and enjoy each other- and I love her for it!!

She reminds me a lot of friends I´ve had in the past. I think she looks/ talks a bit like Autumn Jones, has done a lot of the same things as Elise Carter, and likes a lot of the same things as Kayla Cook, haha. She loves folk rock and has performed at an open mic night at the Velour (aaahh yeah) and we listen to her iPod full of bluegrass versions of lds hymns all the time. Plus, she gets all of my American references like movie quotes and such- which is a very welcome change, haha. She thought the Jeopardy recording was awesome :)

Oh, and happy late Thanksgiving e´rybody! Sounds like it was good for everybody. I´m glad to hear Mike made a good impression on Alicia´s family, haha.

We had a big dinner in our chapel with the JAS (YSA) and the other missionaries in the zone. We contributed a ton of roasted vegetables using the recipe Mom sent and those were a huge hit. We also ate lots of pie and turkey and rolls (which were fascinating to the JAS, haha. They´d never eaten rolls). It was great.

We listened to the recording that Brother Carey made with all of the missionaries in our district (we were waiting for a meeting to start), and holy cow, his stories are awesome!  Also, tell Sister Duff and the Ellsworths thanks for the Thanksgiving cards! :)

We found a little Christmas tree in our closet so it´s looking like Christmas here, too! We´re going to start offering to share a message about Jesus Christ "for Christmas" in our street contacting and see if that gets us in some more doors :)

I´ll have my Pday on the 25th, so we´ll Skype then :) And I would really love to do Gifts of the Heart with you all, but I just don´t think that´s something I´d be able to work out...

Anyhoo, like I said, we weren´t able to have very many visits this week, but Frank is doing AWESOME. Still no job/ place to live, but there´s always a huge smile on that great man´s face. He came to our English class this week and Hermana Zitting and I had a lot of fun trying to teach him to say the word "bird," because that´s not a vowel sound that exists in Spanish. He just kept saying "beard." As Hna Zitting kept repeating "bird. Bird. Bird" we both couldn´t stop laughing because it reminded us so much of Bambi, hahaha. He was having fun with it too.

We had a lesson with him last night, and he asked if he could share a thought with us. He opened up to Revelations 2, and talked about the "first love," and how first understanding of the mutual love we have with our Heavenly Father is what begins the conversion process. He closed in the name of Jesus Christ and everything. :) And then he walked with us to the chapel to go teach one of the Elders´ investigators with them! 

The Il----s are doing a little better, too. They´re starting to understand the blessings that this Gospel can bring them, but the frustrating thing is that they still aren´t getting that they can have them, too. We had a long lesson about the Atonement and how it´s available to everyone, and I think that helped. Prayers for them, please! :)

And El--n is doing so, so great. He´s been doing a lot with the JAS, and he keeps reminding people of his baptismal date- which he´s still a little nervous about, but he has a testimony!

We were able to visit M--u again this week, too. I love that woman. We stopped by her piso where a bunch of other previously homeless people live with her, and as we were getting ready to leave, one of her friends- clearly abusing several "harmful substances" walked in and asked us if she could finally have her own Book of Mormon- she´d been borrowing M--u´s. She sat down next to M--u, and Hna Zitting and I just felt a strong love for her come over us. She few teeth she had were black, she had dirty clothes, and blood coming from the corner of her mouth. We talked with her for a bit, gave her a huge hug, and left.

The contrast between her and M--u was so intense. M--u´s bright eyes and powerful testimony as she sat there telling us about how she´s hanging onto her testimony even as terrible things continue to happen to her- and the other woman´s pitiful state and hopeless attitude just showed, so clearly, what kinds of things the Gospel had rescued M--u from. Everyone needs this.

My relationship with the people we`re teaching and with the members has deepened so much this week. I love them all so, so much. I feel like I´m really "moving in" to my mission- little by little. Accepting more and more that this is my life right now and this is who I am and what I do. It´s not just something I´m doing for a year and a half until I finally go home, back to my "real" life.

But one thing I caught myself doing this week was being way too into comparisons with other people. I´ve noticed that it´s really easy to feel like we have talents when they´re different from the talents of those around us. For example, if I´m the only one in a group who can draw, I feel like I have a talent for drawing. But as soon as someone else comes along that can draw better than I can, I feel like I don´t have that talent. It´s the same with other things, like playing the piano, speaking Spanish, etc. I´ve noticed that the only time I feel like I have a talent for something, is when those around me don´t. And when they do, I suddenly don´t anymore. 

I even realized that, sometimes, the blessings of the Gospel don´t seem that special to me because anyone can have them. How ridiculous is that kind of thinking?!

I received a prompting during personal study though, a gentle little reminder, that Heavenly Father didn´t intend for our worth or talents to be measured using comparisons to those around us. It´s something completely individual. That´s such a hard mentality to maintain!!

As I talked to Hna Zitting about how in the world I could go about getting rid of that kind of thought process, she suggested that I think only of comparing myself to- myself. My past self. 

This kind of thinking, instead of depressing us and making us set impossible expectations based on the success of others, makes us want to progress and be better.

And then all that´s left is not beating yourself up when you slip up and aren´t perfect. As President Uchtdorf points out in that marvelous talk, "Forget me not" that Mom sent (perfect timing as always!)..."God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect... God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not."

And of course, as we get better at following the example of Jesus Christ more fully, we won´t even have time to worry about ourselves because we´ll be too busy serving others and turning outward in all that we do! Little by little. We´ll get there :)

I hope you all have another great week! Enjoy the Christmas spirit and don´t let finals/ Christmas shopping/ girlfriends coming home stress anyone out! ;)

Love you tons!!!!

-Hna Grover

Just one recording for this week... :)

Email 19 - Frank is Baptized! And a New Companion!

 

"Frank's Baptism"

 

 

 "Visiting Nancy"

 

"Saying goodbye at the train station with Katy and Melissa"

Hey family!

We´re about to go pick up my new companion, Hermana Zitting (the only thing I know is that she´s from the States), so I don´t have time to read your emails- but I´ll print them and read them later! (Hopefully Hna Zitting and I will be able to return to finish up. I doubt she´s done her internet time yet.)

Thanks for the Thanksgiving banner/sign! Hna Diezi and I have been filling it up, and I´m going to have the YSA here write on it when we have our Thanksgiving dinner this week. :D Also, I´m super grateful for the Conference talks. I was so excited to see that in there! And the Plan of Salvation pictures are stupendous. Aida sent me a sweet package as well, give her a big hug for me when you see her!

Oh, and I skimmed through your emails, and yeah, I´ve listened to all of the recordings. Multiple times, haha. I love it! I´ve been with the other Hnas all day, and I don´t have the cord to send this week´s recordings, but if I come back with Hna Zitting, I´ll send them!

Alright, now for the good stuff.

Frank was baptized this Friday! His baptism was nothing less than a miracle. As we were meeting with him the day before, we were prompted to have him talk with the family history specialists about the temple with us. I was a little nervous about talking about it before baptism, but after showing him photos of temples and talking a bit about their purpose, he told me it confirmed his decision to be baptized!

Two hours before his baptism, Frank called us and said "we need to talk." Naturally, Hna Diezi and I were freaking out about what could have happened. We met up and he told us that he hasn´t had any work for 4 months, and a lady offered him a job, but she could ONLY meet on that day, at the exact time of his baptism, in a city 30 minutes away.

After talking for a while about what we could do, Hna Diezi asked how much faith he had. He said, "muchisimo." She then promised him that if he put the Lord first and was baptized instead of taking the job, he would find something better.  And he was baptized two hours later :D 

He was sad to see Hna Diezi go, but much less so than many of the members. It´s very apparent with him that he´s truly began the conversion process, and he genuinely has a testimony of the truth.

Hna Diezi left this morning to Madrid to be companions with... (dramatic pause)... Hna Adair!!! Crazy.  (editor's note:  Hna. Adair was Chrissy's companion in the Missionary Training Center in Provo!)

I´m excited to meet my new companion. I hope she´s ready to work, haha, because we´ve got lots to do here in Gijón.

As for our other investigators, E---n came to Frank´s baptism and to church the next day! He´s progressing really well, and committed to living the Word of Wisdom in our last lesson. He told the Elders when his baptismal date was, and told the other Hnas that he thinks being an Elder would be really cool. :)

We were finally able to meet with Fa---la again, and she´s telling her friends that she´s a Mormon! She wants us to meet with a few of her friends that are "losing their faith," because she always feels good when she´s with us. 

It´s been so great seeing how the Lord opens opportunities for us when we´re really set on working hard all day. It can be easy sometimes to slack off a bit during the day, like walking slower between appointments just to take up time, etc. But after a day of that, I just feel terrible because we´ve wasted the Lord´s time.

And so, one day this week, I was just praying all day that we´d be able to use all of our time exactly how the Lord would want us to. 

And of course, that was the day when a bunch of our lessons fell through. We had 40 minutes without anything, and I was super thirsty and Hna Diezi needed a bathroom, but we knew we needed to do something so we set out to contact. 

 

About two minutes later, a girl grabs my shoulder, apologizes profusely for never being able to meet, and insists that we stop in a cafe for a bit so she can buy us a drink and we can talk. ´Turns out she was a street contact from about a month ago. It was a little thing, but it was a miracle! Heavenly Father knew our desire to work hard that day, and he provided the way :)

 

Ok, we actually have to run to the train station now. I have more to say and photos to send, so I´ll hopefully be coming back in a minute!

 

Love you guys tons!!!

 

-Hna Grover

 

I´m back! Hna Zitting seems super awesome. She´s 22, from Tennessee, has 4 months left in the mission, and studied Speech Therapy at BYU. I think we´re going to get along super well :)

 

Kate- good luck with your new homeschool group! Keep me updated on that :) and I would love to see more of your drawings!

 

Dad- I´ve left that camera on auto the entire time, haha :) I love it! I´ve been keeping it safe with that little Pelican case Aunt Sue gave me a million years ago. I´m glad to hear that tithing settlement is such an uplifting experience. It´s been really neat seeing a transformation in the branch president here in the way he handles things. He´s a much more patient, humble person than when I first met him. I´m so grateful that we have callings in this church!

 

Mom- Thanks for the article and for sharing Sheila´s story! That´s awesome! I would have loved to have you in the kitchen for making paella as well! I took notes, I´ll send them to you next week :)

 

Mike- sounds like the band is doing great! Let me know how things go with Alicia :)

 

Anyway...

 

I´ve been studying a lot this week about the potentials we have and the labels we give ourselves. Especially as missionaries, we often make the huge mistake of defining ourselves by our actions. If I don´t make an effort to contact anyone on my way to an appointment, it´s easy to think, "welp, I´m a failure at contacting. I´m not a missionary who works hard." Or if I don´t understand something that someone says at church, it´s easy to think, "ha, I guess I don´t understand this language after all. I´m not a missionary that can speak Spanish." (Kinda like what it talks about in that ´Drops of Awesome´ blogpost, y´know?)

 

Funny thing is that we (or at least I) tend to feel justified in our actions with these definitions. But when you consider the purpose of life and the enabling power of the Atonement, it´s SO clear that this kind of thinking isn´t of God. 

 

We aren´t supposed to limit our capacities by assigning constraining definitions to ourselves or others. I´m sure that´s not something Heavenly Father would approve of!

 

Our constant desire and focus should be improvement and progression. Elder Ulisses Soares says that "Upon acknowledging our dedication and perseverance, the Lord will give us that which we are not able to attain due to our imperfections and human weaknesses."

 

It´s true that there are things we alone can´t do without the Lord. Without His help, it´s true that, in those moments, I´m not a missionary who can work hard or speak the language, but if I define myself that way, it won´t change. His promise is that we´ll be able to have those attributes and capacities we need- even when our weaknesses say otherwise- IF we are dedicated, persevering, and if we trust the Lord.

 

We can´t forget that Heavenly Father´s the ONLY one with the right to put a label on us, and the one He gives us is that of His children :) Divine in nature and infinite in worth.

Kinda cheesy sounding sometimes, but it´s so true and so important!

 

I love you guys tons!  Have a great week!

 

PS- Hna Zitting and I are typing away furiously, haha, I´ll send a picture of us next week :)

 

Love you!

 

Email 18 - Baptism This Saturday!

 

 

 

"Making paella with the lovely María Bazían last Pday! :)"

 

 

 

 

"An activity in the chapel with the JAS (YSA).  In that picture, there´s Elder Castaldi, me, Elder Alhovuori, Hna Diezi, Elvin Aixa (on the recording), Carmelo, Vicki, 2 JAS from Olviedo, Edgar, Hna Hunt, Yajira, Elder Hunt, Melissa, Katy, and a friend of hers :)"

 "Playing Jenga at a Noche de Hogar"

 

 

"The day we forgot our umbrella"

 

 

"The talent night :) That´s little Daniella who I told you about."

  "Swiss food!"

"Noah and Ellie´s artwork :)"

 

 

 

"This morning, the Olviedo Elders stopped by to return something of Hna Diezi´s that they had. We showed them the beach before they left."

 

 

 

"I´m prophesying that there´ll be a temple there someday ;)"

 

And the editor let's Photoshop make it so. :)

Hiiii family!

Wow, everyone had eventful weeks! So fun to hear from you :D THANK YOU for the package! And the awesome recording device!! Holy cow that was amazing! The music is stupendous, too, and I´ll definitely make that pumpkin bread for Thanksgiving. You guys are the best.

I sent a postcard last Pday to the Brodricks, and got an awesome letter from them the next day! Haha, so the postcard won´t have anything to do with what they wrote to me. ´Looks like we were both inspired ;)

We had a very cold, wet, BUSY week. It was awesome!! I don´t know what we´re doing differently, but I´m certainly not complaining. 

Fr--- is getting baptized this Saturday!!!! It´s the perfect end for Hermana Diezi and I after two long transfers. We´re just about positive she´s heading out next week. We´ll see what´s coming next! :)

Anyway, Fr--- has really been an inspiration for the members here. We were teaching him with one lady, S----a, and she was just shocked by how easily he was able to quit smoking. S----a - "¿¿Ya dejo de fumar??" Fr--- - "Claro..." Haha.

Last night, we taught him with Carmelo and another member, Gladys. At the end of the lesson, Carmelo looked at him and told him that there was something he wanted him to give him. As if cued, Fr--- popped the earring out of his ear and handed it over. He is so ready to get baptized!

Also, randomly this week, T--i called us again! We haven´t seen him in two months! He called because his son living in the Domincan Republic with his ex fell and had to get stitches, and it freaked him out. He said he knew he´d feel better after talking to us :)

We also met with M---a again- it turns out she hadn´t "moved" after all ;) But she had a new phone and that´s why we couldn´t get in touch.

Oh, and we found M--u!!! Holy cow, thank you so much for the prayers. She´s had some really terrible things happen to her in the last couple of weeks, but she´s stuck to her guns the whole time. She just wasn´t sure how to approach us and the members without first working out in her mind what had happened. Anyway, she´s doing much better now. Fr---´s helping a lot. 

We met with the sweet family of Av----a again, and we just now saw her kids walking home from school :) We haven´t seen A-----o in two weeks but we´re hoping to meet with him today, and both of the Il----s had a lot of questions answered during our Plan of Salvation lesson and we´re feeling good about their progress!

And we put a baptismal date for El--n! He´s set for baptism on the 21st of December. If everything continues to go as well as they have this week (not only will we continue to not be able to go home for medio dia ever because we have lessons, haha) we´ll have a baptism this week, and then 5 more next month! It´s crazy.

We also prepared for and had a Talent Show on Saturday night with the ward members. It was so fun! Almost everyone participated in some way, and a couple of our investigators showed up to watch. The other missionaries and I did a goofy skit together. I got someone to take a video- I´ll see if I can find a way to send it :)

 

Some members had us over last night to eat, and they fed us legit Swiss food!! It was so, so delicious. They used something called a raclette, where they melt cheese underneath and cook meat and stuff on top. I stuffed myself silly with that goodness. I imagine Dad probably ate some of that during his mission. :)

 

We´ve been so, so busy. And as I´ve studied the war chapters in the Book of Mormon this week, I´ve learned so much about patience, not being overwhelmed, and doing everything you can and then leaving the rest to God. 

 

The story of the Stripling Warriors might just be my new favorite. Their "little force" as Helaman calls them helped so much, and these 2,000 young men were so inspiring to the rest of the armies of Moroni (Alma 56:16-17). After the success of their first battle, 60 more of their peers joined the army (Alma 57:6) :) And we´re familiar with how all of them fought valiantly, and all of them received wounds, but not one of them died. Directly after the battle, Helaman sent out to pull the wounded from among the dead. 200 of these boys had fainted from the loss of blood, but because Helaman went to rescue them immediately, not one of them were lost (Alma 57: 24-26). 

 

No matter what happened, how unprepared or overcome they felt, they never feared their enemies. The only thing they feared were the judgements of God. They had complete confidence that God had absolute power and would deliver them from their enemies, they only feared that they would be seen unworthy of this blessing (It explains, then, why Moroni freaks out so bad any time he sees even the slightest bit of iniquity among his people, haha).

 

You actually can learn a lot from the war chapters. There are amazing examples of confidence in the Lord and the rewards of righteous desires, motives, and actions. 

 

The talk Mom sent last week was, once again, completely inspired! (Truths and Lies by Jennifer Nuckols) I especially loved these two quotes:

 

"Some people may not easily give into large temptations, but if Satan can depress and immobilize those Saints through a false perception of their unworthiness or inadequacies, then they become neutralized in the fight against evil." (Sister Nuckols) 

 

And then what Elder Maxwell said:

 

"May I speak, not to the slackers in the Kingdom, but to those who carry their load and more; not to those lluled into false security, but to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short... There is a difference... between being "anxiously engaged" and being "over-anxious and thus underengaged"... We can distinguish more clearly between divine discontent and the devil´s dissonance, between dissatisfaction with self and disdain for self, We need the first and must shun the second, remembering that when conscious calls to us from the next ridge, it is not soley to scorn but also to beckon."

 

Don´t ever be immobilized in battle! :)

As it says in that "Drops of Awesome" blogpost that I love...

"Small and simple... Go forth. Be awesome."

 

I love you guys tons!! Have a great week!

 

-Hna Grover

 

I hope these recordings work :)