Email 33 - "Wherever You Go, Go With All Your Heart." :)

Here´s Hermana Brooke Shelton from my BYU ward! 

A taste of the really cool grafitti that´s all over the place here.

Hello family!

I´m glad you got to see a little clip of my life here in Madrid through the Delaps. It was so fun to see someone from home and get updates on the families in the ward. :) Hermana Palomino was grateful when she discovered that they speak Spanish, too, haha.

Thank you so much for the letters you sent over with them!! That´s always the best thing ever. And I loved the articles Dad sent. If only we could implement some sort of universal policy that everyone had to read those before being able to comment on our beliefs, haha. Members and nonmembers alike... ;)

Mom, that´s so cool that you got to meet Michael Wilcox!! That was nice of him to sit so he didn´t tower over you in the picture, hahaha. Loved the rest of those shots, too. That one of B-rad, Kate and the Brodrick trio is awesome.

Anyhoo, F------o had a really good week. We had a Noche de Hogar with him and two members and it was pretty dang perfect. All of the comments from the members addressed a lot of the concerns that F------o´s been having. They talked about how he´ll never feel alone as a member of the ward, that even though it´ll be hard, there´ll always be people there to help, and they talked to him about the Holy Ghost and the help that will be to him. So great!

The bummer is that he slipped up yet again this weekend. We always try to make plans with him on Friday and Saturday nights so he doesn´t have a chance to even be tempted to go out and drink, but this Saturday, he slipped up while out at lunch with some friends. Unfortunately, that means we´ll be changing his baptismal date, but I´m confident that he´s going to be okay.

A----a´s rockin´ it and coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon like a pro. We had a Noche de Hogar with her and her parents on Saturday night, and after sharing our message, J---e, her dad, asked if we could share another one! Haha. We also enjoyed Mom´s brownie recipe again and played a very watered-down version of Grover Charades. I´ve never seen those three laugh so hard before. :)

Friday was Carnival! All I know about that is that everyone wears costumes in the streets and then they have a parade/dance party that night. It was fun street contacting that day for sure. I haven´t been carrying my camera around with me lately, and I definitely regretted it that night, haha.

We also had a neat lesson with two African guys, S---y and F------n. As we invited them to accept baptism, F------n laughed and said to S---y, "I knew it! I told you they were going to ask you about baptism!" and then turned to us and said, "he´s prepared. S---y´s ready to be baptized."

They both then asked a bajillion questions about the process of preparation. All of their questions were the "I want to believe this" kind, and not the "I can´t believe this because of this" kind. Love that. It´s always tough getting in touch with them, so we´ll see how things go with them this week.

Oh, and we had another eating appointment this week! We ate with a outspoken, Dominican, returned-missionary and her two teenagers. I love Dominicans. And I really love their greasy, yummy food.

Wednesday was by far the best day this week. Elder Teixeira and his wife came to do our mission tour!! Three of the zones near/ in Madrid got together (yep, still haven´t had a single meeting with the whole mission. Is that weird?) and I got to see Elder Alhovuori, Hermana Fuller, and Hermana Shelton (she was in my ward at BYU!).

Anyway, I learned a LOT during the 6 hours we spent there in the chapel. Elder Teixeira has a really neat presence, an uplifting sense of humor, and he speaks English with a hint of a New Jersey-type accent, haha. He had us all come up and shake his hand and meet him before beginning the meeting.

The General Authorities are very wise, very inspired men. I learned a lot during the discussions he led, and the message that kept coming to mind was to be a consecrated missionary. To give all I´ve got to the 18 month-opportunity to wake up each morning and be a sister missionary.

Hermana Jackson focused her talk on that and explained how every conscious thought and effort needs to be focused on the work. I love the quote she shared from Confuscious (sp?):

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart." :)

And the main message from Elder Teixeira was to put our missionary purpose into action, and he gave us something new to try- with the promise that if we embrace it, we will transform our area and quadruple our teaching pool within an transfer. Sounds great to me!

He told us to ask our investigators to think for a moment about who they would like us to pray for as we begin our lesson. He told us to pay attention to the promptings that come during the prayer that follows, and then suggest to the investigator the help for this person that the Spirit has revealed. He said we can explain a specific way in which the church/ missionaries can help the investigator´s friend or family member. We should try to meet the person/ pass their number to missionaries nearby within the next couple of days, and then you´ve got a new investigator AND someone to help your principle investigator along in their first few steps of conversion.

We had a lesson with A----a directly after that meeting, and we prayed with her for an inactive friend of hers who, after years, is still really struggling with the loss of her mom.

Hermana Palomino and I both felt that we needed to recover the Plan of Salvation to help A----a feel better equipped when comforting her friend. As we started, J---e walked in! We´ve been trying to share the Plan of Salvation with him for weeks!!

It was such a miracle. We´re definitely going to put this idea of Elder Teixeira´s into practice more often.

Among other things, Elder Teixeira also spoke for about ten minutes about the importance of learning English. (I was really glad that that´s something we´re already working on, because that would have been a very guilty moment if not!) So my comp is more pumped than ever to learn. :)

I love how we get to have meetings like these as missionaries, but I also know it´s all meaningless if we don´t change anything. Like what it says in Moroni 4:10, "If you believe all these things see that you do them."

There´s always something we can do to change and improve!

Oh, and on Wednesday, after walking past that beautiful place almost everyday, I finally get to go into the temple!!!

Have a great week, folks! I love you guys :)

-Hna Grover

PS- I haven´t been doing very good about taking pictures... but here´s Brooke Shelton from my BYU ward and a taste of the really cool grafitti that´s all over the place here. :)  And a quick little recording :)

That´s all I´ve got for now!

Love you tons!!