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 :)