Email 12 - "I feel super close to you all while I´m out working."

 Our ritualistic Dominos visit after the zone meeting :)

 A lovely shot that Hna Fuller captured of our post-Santi´s-house coma

 The traditional Swiss dish that Hna Diezi made for us :D



 

Loving this beautiful place :)

That´s all for this week!  Once again, love you to pieces

-Hna Grover

Hey family!

Ok, I don´t know if I´m just dramatically more in-tune as a missionary (hopefully, right? haha), or if General Conference has just never been quite this awesome before, but HOLY COW I got so much out of it!!! Every single talk was so inspiring!

To answer your questions about how we watched it, we got to see one session on Saturday night, and then we watched the Relief Society broadcast the next morning, followed by two more sessions. If not for our missionary curfew, we also would have stayed at the capilla for the session starting at 10pm that night. So we still haven´t seen the Sunday afternoon session. But still, 3 General Conference sessions in a row made for a pretty stellar day. And we had a miracle! FIVE investigators came to watch a session! We´ve only ever had one investigator at church, so that was super awesome. In each session, the messages were perfect for whichever investigator we had there. (Oh, and we were able to watch it all in English. I wanted so badly to hug Hermano Carmelo when he told me that he set up a room for us with the session in our language, haha. It was kinda funny just sending our investigators off into the session with a member, and then going into a different room, praying that they were feeling the spirit and responding well.)

And I loved that I got to see Mads in the choir during the RS session!! The members all laughed when I rewound the tape after the session was over to grab a photo. The choir director at the MTC had told the Sisters that we needed to really encourage all of the Sisters to participate in choir, because they were going to need a lot of them for the "something special" happening in October. I can´t believe I wasn´t able to guess what that was at the time, haha.

I´ve also been studying the conference talks from April a TON. I read a couple talks from the Ensign at the beginning of almost every personal study, and with a prayer that I´ll find the things that I need, and that the investigators and members need, the spirit works miracles. We´ve used so many of those talks in our lessons (especially with new/ inactive members). The words of the leaders of the church are so powerful! And Mom, I love that talk you sent from President Eyring. Especially when he said "Heavenly Father and the Savior want you to be fitted to be with Them to live in families forever. Only those washed perfectly clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ can be there." How intense is that?? I mean, when we really understand that, it makes every trial bearable and the need to share the Gospel that much more intense. 

Also, in that Ensign that I´ve got, President Monson said, "A mission is a family affair. Though the expanse of continents or oceans may seperate, hearts are as one." :)

Anyway (this is going to be a super long email, haha), this week we had intercambios! (exchanges) I was with Hermana King for a couple of days, and it was really fun to change things up a bit. We´re both really similar, and it was fun to see that we both have the same very strong opinions about a lot of things. I learned a lot from her :)  And, haha, we also discovered, as we talked about our BYU days while getting ready for bed, that we´ve both kissed a boy on the same doorstep, hahaha. (She lived in Hinckley Hall the year before I did). Fun stuff. Also, did I tell you that she and J-Bob were in the MTC at the same time? :)

Hermana Diezi learned a lot from her intercambios too, and we´ve been applying it this week. The Hermana she was with is up in Oviedo, and though she knows a lot of Spanish, she struggles with the accent, so most of the people she talks to stop her and tell her that they don´t speak English (even though she´s speaking Spanish). And yet she still talks to EVERYONE. She doesn´t hold back at all, and Hna Diezi said she has a way of getting people to just stop and listen. The spirit works through her and connects to people, even though they don´t understand a word. While they were together, this Hermana contacted two girls about our age, that Hna Diezi later told me were girls that we probably wouldn´t have approached. They both accepted to be taught, and the next day, Hna Diezi and I had an incredible lesson with them!

One of the girls, L****, told us that on the day that they contacted her, she had the worst day of her life. She said that she felt horrible, and she just said, "God, if you´re there, show me." And then she was contacted by the missionaries!! They have a TON of super hard questions (they like to throw complicated news stories at us and ask why God lets them happen, why God allows people to be born with disabilities, etc. It´s pretty challenging!), but we see so, so much potential in both of them. I´m stoked to keep teaching them.

Anyway, we learned that we really just need to talk to absolutely everyone. Sounds simple enough, right? But we tend to pick and choose who we think is going to accept our message. We just had a powerful example of exactly why we can´t afford to do that (Alma 16:14-16). We need to keep finding people like L****!

In our zone meeting that we had this week, our zone leader told us that we also need to be thinking of the Atonement while we contact. I´ve thought a lot about that since then, and Hna Diezi and I are really trying to put that in practice. When we´re thinking of the Savior, and how these people really and truly can´t enter the presence of Heavenly Father (like what Pres Eyring said) without our message, it helps me realize that, despite what they may think, we really aren´t just inconveniently soliciting them, but inviting them to have the opportunity to be cleansed from all the bad things of this world, and to live in perfect happiness with their families in the presence of Christ and our Heavenly Father. 

Another Elder pointed out that we could just stop them and say, "hey, we want you to join our church. And then we want 10% of your income for the rest of your life." Haha, but I don´t think that´d work quite as well. (Reminds me of President Uchtdorf´s awesome talk in the Saturday morning session, haha)

We´re still working hard as we try to come up with ways to get the members together. Because it was only us 4 Hermanas (with one other hilarious Sister from the ward that knows a little English) in the room watching Conference in English, we cheered everytime they said something about members and missionary work, haha. It was so exciting!!! We´re also working on getting everyone to the chapel to watch the Work of Salvation broadcast this weekend, and we´re setting up a talent night to get members to bring their friends.

 

We´re also feeling really, really good about our relationship now with the branch president. We taught T*** in his house the other day, and he came home right as we were finishing up, and then we were able to tell him about the baptismal date we had just set (October 25th!!), and about some things going on in the branch. He also keeps running into us on the street as we´re contacting someone. I´m just really glad that he´s seeing us in action and finally knows that he can trust us!

 

Although some members might just love us a little TOO much ;) We ate at Santi´s house this week (Have I told you about him? Crazy supportive, old, Spanish man. He loves to give the Hermanas chocolate bars, and he has a fake right arm- always shake with the LEFT hand, haha) and I have never felt so horribly full in all my life. I thought I was going to explode! We waddled to the other Hermana´s piso for a few minutes after the eating appointment and I collapsed on the floor and couldn´t get back up, haha. But then medio dia ended and we had to go out to work. We felt better after a few minutes... because there are still miracles in our day, haha.

 

I feel super close to you all while I´m out working. I can´t even put into words how grateful I am to have been raised in the Gospel and in the family we have. The two answers we always get to "are you a person that believes in God?" on the street are ALWAYS "Nope. Never have, never will," or, "Yes, very much. But in my own manner. Now go away," and I´m so glad that I grew up in such a way that, if I were asked that question, I could say, "Yes, He is everything to me, and I know He loves me. I know how to be able to live with Him again, and I know that He will help me, every step of the way."

 

A year and a half is nothin´ compared to eternity, and I´m grateful that we can be together for all that time!

 

(I´m also super grateful for the love that comes in the mailbox!! I got so many letters this week, it was fantastic! 7 from home in one day! Thank you to the Alexanders as well, for the sweet letter from their family! And to Uncle Scott for the letter and the disc. I love those piano guys songs! And Katie, your drawing is super impressive! Keep that up!!)

Wow, that was super long, haha. But I love you all so, so much, and I really hope you all are doing well, and that you all got as much of a boost from conference as I did! I would write some of the things that I loved down, but there were too many things, haha. Just read/ listen to them ALL if anyone that reads this haven´t yet!

Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Grover

 

P.S.  To Dad:

That Young Women Presidency sounds incredible! And also very similar to when I was in Beehives :)

 

I´m so excited for Jay!!!! Give him a hug for me, too. Tell him that now all he needs to do is serve a mission! ;)

I love you and miss you! So glad to hear things are going so well back home. And thank YOU for the pictures! I love seeing them!!

 

Love,

Hna Grover

PS - "I think you´re terrific!" ;)