Email 30 - Strength in the Face of Opposition, and a Special Delivery, Thanks to American Airlines Pilot, Captain Randy Scully!

Hand-delivered!

 "My favorite scripture in Elder Helske´s Finnish scriptures"

(John 14:6)

"A white van giving us some encouragement during a hard moment, haha" (Editor:  I think this translates to "The Best is Yet to Come.")

"The weather has been very cold, very windy, and very wet, but no snow for now!"

"Some of Hna Palomino´s cooking :)"

Valentines Package

"I´m not a fan of these three (below) because I look like a goober, but Hna Palomino was very proud of my reactions and said I had to send them, haha.  Thanks again for the packages!

And Katie, thank you for the new bracelet! I gave one of them to Hna Palomino :) My other one was looking a little old. The colors aren´t so bright anymore, hahaha. I´ll send you a picture next time."

"So excited to make some American goodness with that stuff!"

"We definitely just walked by a big ole important fútbol game the other day. Definitely in Spain!"

"More of Hna Palomino´s cooking"

"Proud to have earned missionary shoes like these! (please don´t send new shoes, these still work just fine - with some help of some glue ;) and I only need boots for a tiny bit longer anyway. I have plenty of other shoes)"

Holy Christmas all over again, Batman!!! THANK YOU for the packages!!!!!!!!! The homemade bread, cookies, brownies, and snickerdoodles are all very fresh and soft,  very appreciated by all, and very, very delicious. (Perfect for finishing a fast!) We got the cans of pumpkin and all those treasures this past Wednesday, the box from Captain Scully yesterday, and then your big Valentine´s box came this morning! I couldn´t believe it! Hermana Palomino had a lot of fun snapping shots of my reactions to what was inside, hahaha.  Feeling the love!! ´Definitely feeling ready to take on the world ;)

(Editor:  Patient and friend Randy Scully, an American Airlines pilot, called to tell us he was flying to Madrid, and generously offered to take something to Chrissy!  We emailed President & Sister Jackson to see if a meeting could be arranged.  The Jacksons were awesome, and rolled out the red carpet!  They sent the assistants to pick Randy up at his hotel, arranged for Chrissy and her companion to greet Randy at the temple, and for the Missionary Training Center President (Lovell) to meet Randy and give him a tour of the MTC!  The Jackson's daughter, Megan, is serving in the Florida Orlando Mission, so Randy not only took a package to Chrissy, he also picked one up from the Jacksons to bring back to Orlando for Sister Jackson!  During the course of our excited emailing back and forth, President and Sister Jackson each had very sweet things to say about our Hermana.  Thanks to the Jacksons for making this all work, and thanks to Captain Randy Scully for blessing two families with his intercontinental mission of joy!)  

Meeting Captain Scully was such a fun experience. What a great guy!! The Assistants picked him up in his hotel and brought him to temple square (President Jackson told me how bummed he was that he was in the Islands and couldn´t be there, but he had asked me to give him a tour of the grounds). I was really glad that the Assistants were there because I´ve only given that tour once before and my companion couldn´t help me out because she doesn´t speak English!

Haha, it felt strange teaching in English, but the Spirit was definitely present and Captian Scully was thrilled to snap a bunch of pictures to show to you guys :)

And it was really cool meeting President Lovell, too. ´Turns out, he and his wife are best friends with Bryan and Peggy Russell!! He gave us a tour of the MTC, too :)

Captain Scully was super attentive, interested and respectful of the temple (asking if it was okay to take pictures, if it was okay to show them to you guys, etc) and of what we do as missionaries the whole time :) It was such a nice visit!

F------o is doing well. He went two whole weeks without drinking! And after slipping up once, we were pleasantly surprised to see that he was optimistic and ready to start again. And he came to the other Hna´s baptism this Saturday!  The only issue with him for now is that he still feels like he needs more preparation before he accepts baptism. We told him to pray and find out what God thinks :)

A----a´s doing well, too. She finally told us what we´ve been suspecting, and it turns out that her boyfriend has asked her not to go to church and told her that he really didn´t like us coming over and all that good stuff. Thankfully, her response to that, to us, was that she wants us to come over every morning and read the scriptures with her. Heck yes!

We´re hoping she acts on the promptings she´s going to receive about what she needs to do. We fasted with her yesterday and even though she´s having a reeeally hard time right now being stuck between the church and this boy she really loves, we know she´s going to do the right thing :)

I´ve been lately helping a fifteen year old that lives in our building with her English homework, and we always get to share a little about the church with her and her mom before we leave. It´s been fun :)

The last time we showed up, though, she told us that she just found out that she had an Algebra test the next day, and her family has been traveling so she wasn´t in class for the whole chapter. Yep. Definitely had to try to help someone with Algebra homework. In my second language.  Hermana Palomino had to take over for that one!

Lots of good things this week :) :) :) Hermana Palomino has been cooking some super delicious stuff (I´m going to start paying more attention to how she makes it), like the potato tortilla, some Ecuadorian oven-cooked chicken and veggies, super delicious pizza (surprise! When she worked as a chef for a million years, she not only made Spanish and Ecuadorian food, but she also made pizza!), and we´ve been seeing lots of tender mercies.  And we´ve needed it all, haha.

There are a lot of people out there that don´t like what we´re doing as missionaries, or that just reeeally don´t like our beliefs. Most often, these are people with strong religious beliefs that differ from ours.  Up to this point, we´re good. No worries. You have your belief. We´ll have ours. It´s cool.

I´m so grateful for the emphasis put on the sacred nature of our callings in this church, because these people are never very content with meeting us and then letting us peacefully go about the work. We´ve been finding these people surprisingly frequently, and it can be a little tough. BUT I know that I have a call from a living prophet. 

As David M. McConkie put it, "You are on the Lord´s errand. You are His agent, and you are authorized and comissionied to represent Him and to act on His behalf."  And he actually said that not just about missionaries, but about every calling in the church.

As these people that we´re running into use powerful and eloquent speech and endless "evidence" in an effort to convince us that we´re mistaken in our beliefs and what we´re doing as missionaries, it can have NO effect on our testimonies. There´s nothing anyone can say (and trust me, it´s all been said!) to sway a testimony that´s founded on inspiration from God Himself and assurances from the Holy Ghost.

I´m imperfect. I don´t have all the answers, and if I did, my life would serve no purpose.  God, however, is perfect. He has all the answers and He gives me the ones I need to make it back to Him. He´s told me that this is the Church of Jesus Christ Himself, and I know I can trust what He tells me (Not people on the street, not "prophets" of other churches, not ex-mormons in Youtube videos, etc)

Our invitation as missionaries to others is that they can ask Him, too. We don´t convince, change, obligate, confuse, use strategem or try to take away the faith that other people have. We share what we know, and invite people to counsel with God in prayer and ask Him what He thinks they should do.

The promise we deliver with the message is that He´ll answer them in the time and way that´s best for them.  And the promise that I rely on is:

"Therefore, if ye do these things, blessed are ye, for ye shall be lifted up at the last day... And for this cause ye shall have fulness of joy; and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; yea, your joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fulness of joy; and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as my Father, and the Father and I are one." (2 Nephi 27:22, 28:10)

The majority of the lessons we´ve had within these last two weeks were with people like the ones I´ve mentioned, and all we do is testify.

Last evening was tough because we found out that S----a has decided to be baptized into the church whose members have been fighting/ preaching directly against our religion. PERFECT timing on your part for a package of home-baked heaven and an inspired note from Dad.! Haha :)  Your testimoy, Dad, is exactly what we´ve been saying all week:

"The complete Gospel of Jesus Christ is now restored to the Earth.

Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and is the Living Head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Thomas S. Monson is the Lord´s prophet.

The Book of Mormon is the Word of God."

So great to hear it again from another source!

And we know that this couldn´t truly be the Kingdom of God on the Earth without the adversary doing everything possible to halt its progress!

I know that Jesus Christ is the One and Only Way back to Heavenly Father. I know that the path He´s laid out for our success and happiness and salvation is found within the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I know that in order to enjoy the blessings of the fulness of the Gospel, accepting both of those books as the Word of God is imperative. I know that we cannot reach our full potential as Children of God without sacred ordinances that will permit us to one day stand in His presence. I know that the Holy Priesthood found in His Restored Church is His power, and I´m so grateful to have grown up surrounded by its influence!

I know that this Church and ALL of its teachings are true! I also know that if we truly want to follow the example of our Lord and Savior, we will love each other and feel no need to attack other faiths.

Thank you guys for sharing/ living your testimonies!! I love you guys so, SO much!!! I´ve always got you in mind, and I know I wouldn´t be out here preaching the Gospel without the love, support, and prayers of my awesome, eternal family!

Hurrah for Israel! ;)

Love,

Hermana Grover