Email 10 - Focusing on Serving and Finding

 

 District Meeting

 

 

 

                                  Medio día at Carmelo´s :)

 

Just so Mom knows we´re eating well ;)

 
 

 

Mom and Kate´s artwork that helps me get out of bed when I need

a nudge ;)

 

 

 

Carmelo´s hilariously ugly dog (he looks unfortunately cute in that picture though. But he he has so much fat on his face that it rolls over his nose so he´s snorting all the time while he breathes. Super hilarious. And don´t worry, Carmelo thinks he´s ugly too, haha)

 

 

Surprising Katy way early in the morning for her birthday with pancakes

Noche de Hogar with a bunch of the members :)

Aaand that Gordon B Hinckley quote otra vez

 

 

What´s up, family? :)
 

It sounds like you´ve all had a pretty busy week, haha. I´m excited to print out your emails and read them a little more in depth later today. I love you guys so much :D
 

It was another crazy week for us, too! But before I get into that, here are a couple things I want to mention first:
 

-I found out that we can listen to "any music that invites the Spirit!" I wasn´t trusting Hermana Diezi on that one because of what it said in President Jackson´s letter, haha, but we were on the phone with him talking about when we could use a computer to look for Mormon Messages (only on Pdays, it turns out. Still super grateful that we have some time. I can´t wait until our mission catches up with some of the missions in Utah that can use iPads in the field!!) and he cleared it up for me. Hermana Diezi has some Piano Guys music, so we´ve been jamming out to that when we´re in the piso :)
 

-Mom, would you mind sending me some recipes? We cook meals almost every day, so I was wondering if you could send me the recipe for that super delish shrimp pasta you make, and for those roasted vegetables? I´ve discovered I´m pretty clueless about how to cook, haha.
 

-I got a letter from Dad, and a couple from Aunt Wen last week :) Thanks so much! Kate mentioned that "Spain" wasn´t written on the letters you sent... those probably won´t get to me, haha. Hopefully they´ll send them back to you and then you can try it again. I´m so sorry if I forgot to add that when I gave you the address!!
 

-It was good to hear that the memory card I´ve got still works! Can I still take photos with it? It doesn´t seem like the camera can read it anymore...
 

Ok, now for the fun stuff :)
 

Things have been pretty interesting with our investigators. We had a roller coaster of a lesson that ended up taking 2 hours (definitely won´t do that again, haha) with T*** this week, after which Hermana Diezi and I were totally drained from trying to discern what he´s feeling and thinking about what we´re teaching (It went something like this: Holy cow, this guy´s totally getting baptized in a couple weeks... crap. He´s totally not prepared quite yet. Ok, well at least we planted a seed. ...Wait, what?? He´s married and has a son? ...Woah nelly, is he crushing on my companion? ...Oh ok, that word doesn´t mean what I thought it did, nevermind...). Haha, it was ridiculous. We´re just praying now to be able to figure out what he needs us to teach, because he knows SO MUCH of the doctrine by now, but he just isn´t taking the steps he needs to.
 

We had a funny thing happen with M****, too. We had taught her the entire first lesson last week, and when we picked her up to walk to the capilla (chapel) for our second lesson, and the first thing she says is, "So what does your church believe?" Ha, whoops. We´re just going to need to take things way slower with her.
 

But we found an incredibly prepared woman on the street the other day, and she basically testified during the contact that we were sent from God and she needed to listen to us. She´s from Buenas Aires, and knows a little bit of English. She´s so, so sweet. She said that she tries to speak slowly so that we´ll understand her, and she told me that if I know a word better in English, to use it, and she´ll try to understand. She´s Catholic, but has been SO open to everything we say. We walked for a half hour to the capilla with her where we taught her the whole first lesson (We really felt like we should teach the whole thing that time, haha, don´t worry) and she definitely was a little surprised when we got to the part about Joseph Smith. But in her prayer at the end of the lesson, she thanked God for sending us to her to teach her things that she didn´t know before about His Gospel. I´m stoked to keep teaching her :)
 

Other than that, we´re really focusing on serving and finding. No one has landscaping to do, or a big house to clean, and no one´s moving, so we´ve had to get a little creative about how to serve (like bringing chocolate to a member who´s husband traveled back to their home country for a year, or like making an American breakfast for Katy for her birthday the other day as a thank-you for all she does). It´s a little difficult to serve people here with the culture being the way it is (if you´re in someone else´s house, it´s for them to serve you, and it seems weird to them if it´s the other way around), but we´re working on it. 
 

Oh, and church was crazy yesterday! Hermana Diezi has been getting sick, so she finally stayed home, but because I had a talk and Hermana King had to play piano, we went on splits to the chapel. We quickly realized how hard it was going to be when I had two of our investigators show up (we haven´t even taught them yet), and Hermana King had a couple show up as well. I played the prelude music while she tried to manage the four investigators, and then she played the hymns during sacrament, I gave my talk (15 minutes of Spanish that sweet Hermano Carmelo promised he understood, but I´m not so sure about what everyone else got out of it, haha), and then we recruited the Elders and some members to help with our investigators. It was rough, but I´m super glad they came :)
 

(By the way, I mentioned in my last email that an Elder was heading home. I really don´t know as much about the situation as I thought I did, because he ended up sticking around, and seemed really happy to be able to. We´re glad he was able to as well)
 

We´ve had some pretty interesting things to eat this week, haha. At a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) the other night, we had a super delicious meat and rice combo that tasted like Mom´s beef stew, and that was stupendous. But then earlier this week, we had a stew made of lentils, hard boiled eggs, and different types of blood sausage. I wasn´t a fan, haha. But hey, thanks to prayer, all things are possible - including eating food you don´t like so no one gets offended ;)
 

I´m still learning a lot here. It´s still tough, but I feel like I´m being very blessed with an understanding of the bigger picture, and that helps me a ton. I´m really grateful to have this set apart time for preparing to become a bit more like what my Heavenly Father has in mind for me. And Hermana Diezi shared a super awesome quote with me the other day that I like a lot:
 

"Today many sisters are being called to serve. Many more are preparing to serve. Not because they have nothing else to do or are not yet married, but they have the desire to serve. One reason the Lord wants more sisters to serve is because within the next generation He will send an army of the priesthood to the earth. He wants to send choice spirit children to mothers who have been prepared, properly trained and taught in the gospel. What better schooling can a mother have than the growth and experience she gained serving a mission?" -President Gordon B. Hinckley
 

Super intense. 
 

I´ve also been studying a lot in Doctrine and Covenants, and it´s been hitting me how real this all is. This is literally the work of the Savior on the Earth today, and I´ve been trusted to take part in it. I have a loooong way to go until I´m the missionary I want to be. I have so much to learn from my companion, from the investigators, and from all the experiences I´m having. It´s crazy!! But we´re being blessed.
 

One fun tender mercy the other day happened as I remembered a talk that President Uchtdorf gave to the Young Women in 2010. All I could remember about the talk was that he talked about our potential, and I remembered feeling like I was a princess, haha. And that´s all I needed to be able to find the talk on Katy´s computer. As we watched it with her, her inactive mom and nine-year-old nonmember sister, we realized how PERFECT it was for them. It was such a little thing, but I was glad that Heavenly Father nudged me in that direction so I could share such a sweet, powerful message with them. (The talk was "Happily Ever After," by the way.)
 

I´m going to start sending some pics and emailing the President before I run out of time, but I love you guys tons and I´m grateful to have you all and the strong members back home backing me up! This area has a long way to go, but I know that one day there will be a solid ward here in Gijon!
 

Love and miss you all lots!!
 

-Hermana Grover