Email 41 - A Good Week Here in Madrid

This was a little scene we ran into outside of the train station. We were with Carlota, and Hna P said she´d love a picture with them. So Carlota just walks right up and asks them to pose with us. Hahaha. So much for trying not to look like tourists.

And no, we´re not sure what it was for, but that´s traditional Spanish dress, so maybe they were just trying to keep tradition alive ;)

"Our little Forget-me-nots that Mom sent. Finally growing!"

"This is one of the best purchases I´ve ever made. I love these pants!"

"And my cute comp :)"

Hi family!

First off- we got our first news on the Mothers´ Day call today, and President said that they´re planning on having us make the calls on Sunday, the 11th. Maybe I can get permission to go on Google+ so we can get Mike in there too :)

Anyhoo, it was a good week for Hna P and I here in Madrid :) Nothin´ too crazy going on, but Sunny is doing great, and we´re working on finding new investigators again. We have a handful that are doing pretty well, but there´s not as much progression as we´d like to be seeing, so we´re trying to find as many newbies as possible. 

One of them is named R-----d, and we found him in the records we've got in the piso. He´s from Honduras, and he´s already got a testimony of the priesthood! He´s very religious, and knows the Bible super well. He used to be a member of one of the churches that doesn´t like our church very much, but he explained to us how he spoke to one of his old pastors and explained how he´s searching for Christ´s true church, and he´s pretty sure he´s found it. He went to the Priesthood Session of General Conference and LOVED it. He said his old churches could never have claimed an authority like the one we have here. :)

And thanks for the meal advice, Mom! Although, you´re correct, with the culture here, it´s true that I won´t really be able to apply much of it. What happens here is that you´re given one full plate- and you´ve got to clean it completely (with bread to wipe it clean and everything), and then they bring out a second full plate that´s usually twice as big, and you´ve got to clean that sucker, too.

Yesterday we were fed something similar to the pig stomach we ate the other day (Hna P said it was a part of the pig´s back), and one of the poor Elders we were eating with just hurled it right up. Poor guy. We were able to cover for him and say it was because they´d just been running all over the place so the member wouldn´t be offended. Haha, ridiculous. I love, love love being a missionary, but being able to control what/ how much I eat will be a welcome change someday! That, and pants.

Anyways we had a lot of neat lessons this week. Everyone we teach has doubts and questions and problems, and the different ways they all go about resolving them is really interesting- and it helps us figure out how well they´re progressing. 

For example, S----o, an African guy we´re teaching, is struggling to understand that only one church has the authority of God to perform sacred ordinances and direct the Lord´s kingdom on Earth. As a result, he´s stopped reading the Book of Mormon.

A----a´s boyfriend didn´t want her to have any association with the church. As you all know, her solution to that was asking us to come over every morning to read with her to strengthen her testimony. (She´s been keeping us updated on the situation there, and she told us the other day that her boyfriend told her he was pleased by her membership in the church and supports her 100%!)

A----o has a misconception of a few different doctrines, including what he´s heard about baptisms for the dead. That halted his progress completely until he stepped back and saw how much his faith has grown and how much happier he´s been since beginning to meet with us.

C-----a (cute little lady, recent convert of the Elders) lives far away from her family and was recently told awful gossip about her husband. Distraught, she prayed, flipped open the Bible and read a verse that basically told her to trust in the Lord and not pay any attention to the crazy things she was hearing.

Regardless of the problem, the Gospel´s always the solution! And prayer´s the very best place for everyone to start :) And the answers from the Man Upstairs always come- you´ve just gotta know what to look for :)

One thing we´ve been using lately to teach that concept is the story of the Brother of Jared. This guy was following the Lord´s instructions exactly, and still ended up with 3 big ole problems with the boats he was building:

1. No light

2. No way to steer

3. No air to breathe!

After praying for guidance, the Lord basically sent him these answers:

1. Make these specific changes in the boats to have air.

2. Don´t even worry about steering, I´ve gotcha there.

3. I trust you to come up with a way to have light. Keep me posted on your ideas.

Those are the 3 basic ways answers come- and it´s really fun teaching this lesson because there´s always a little *click* in there somewhere - when the person suddenly recognizes an answer they've already received.

And even though the third kind of answer can be the hardest- we always invite those we teach to read Ether 3 to finish the story and see what a HUGE blessing/ miracle those kinds of answers can be :)

Answers come, folks!

I hope you all have a good week :) Thanks for the updates on everything back home- I expect updates on Mike´s wedding plans to continue! :) And I can´t wait to get to hear more about it all in person in a couple of weeks!

Love you tons!!!

-HCL :)

Email 40 - Sunny is Baptized! And Reaction to Michael and Alicia's Engagement!

"...the best baptismal service I´ve ever been to..."

 Thanks for the package, Mom!!!!

Easter morning :)

FHE with Noslen, Elder Mullins, me, Hna P, Ana and her nephew, Antonio, Sunny, Elder Helske, and Norma

"Correos- they make the sending/ receiving of Grover love through mail possible, haha. Anytime I have mail to send, I stick it in one of these suckers."

Toledo!

So wet.

"I don´t know what any of these buildings are...."

"picnic :)"

"Toledo swords!"

HELLOO MOUNTAINS* (I mean family!)

Mike´s engaged!!! Alicia´s gonna be a Grover!!! (Hope she likes charades... ;)

That is awesome.

I´m not sure I can top that with my week here in Madrid!

And Happy Easter er´ybody! Thanks for the awesome package, Mom!!!! I had fun explaining all the traditions to Hna P. We´re going to dye us some eggs this week with R-----o and V-------a :) Everyone here in Spain has a LOT of traditions and celebrations for all of Semana Santa, as they remember the suffering of the Savior, but the curious thing is that they really don´t do much of anything for Easter. They don´t even change anything in the stores! (which is saying something... seeing as no one really does anything for Father´s day here, either, but that showed up in all of the shop windows). Interesting, huh?

We just got back to our area from a visit to the BEAUTIFUL old city of Toledo. It´s been sunny and hot all week, and then it was suddenly really wet and chilly today, haha. At least the weather kept the majority of the tourists away :)

We had a lot of fun getting wet and hiking around all of the really old, gorgeous buildings... although, I´ll admit, I really don´t know what the significance of any of them are, haha. I just know that they´re really old, gorgeous buildings... and that´s it, haha. Photo worthy, right? 

I´ll repent of my wrong-doings and study up before I come back to visit this place again someday, haha.

Anyway, I didn´t get a chance to look over my planner to make sure I get all the good stuff in my email this week, but here´s the best part:

Sunny got baptized!!!!

We had the best baptismal service I´ve ever been to. And no, not the best like you might think. It was more like this: about 15 people in attendance, not a single one of us 8 missionaries sang on-pitch during our musical number (no really, it was pretty awful), Sunny having to get dunked twice, and a couple other thrown-together details, but the Spirit was SO STRONG. We only had a few programs, but everyone that was there took one home to remember the service and thanked us as they left for finding and teaching Sunny.

Sunny was baptized for exactly the right reasons. He testified at the end of his baptism of the Savior, of the truthfulness of the Gospel, and the importance of and his love for the Church. He started crying, and people from both sides rushed to the pulpit with tissues. He already seems to know more people in the stake than we do, and he´s already rockin´ it as a strong member. We are VERY blessed missionaries. I´m still not sure what we´ve done to deserve getting to teach this guy. I hope you guys get to meet him someday. He speaks English :)

I also had an intercambio over near the Plaza de Torros (really pretty area) on Friday with sweet, greenie Hna Pávez from Argentina. My first exchange as STL. ´Coolest part about exchanges is how much both missionaries learn from the 24 hours you´re together. Hna Pávez is the best, and her area has SO much potential. It was awesome teaching with her. We met a surfer who knew all about Cocoa Beach and Uncle Matt :)

Some other fun things from this week:

-So we´ve been working on Hna Palomino´s English in the Metro, right? Apparently it caught a lady´s attention, because she came up to me a few days later in the streets and said, "Hey, you were teaching her English in the Metro the other day, right? Can I pay you to help my son with his English?" She was pretty excited to hear that it was free and we´d be delighted to help her son with his homework. I love being a missionary!

-As we walked around in the heat, Hna P and I decided it was about time we started getting into shape before it gets any hotter. We decided we´d plan a diet. Literally just moments later, we walk into an appointment where the sweet member had taken a HUGE loaf of french bread, cut it in half, and stuck 4 hotdog sausages in each half, and gave one to each of us. Haha, so with that little taste of mission-life reality, we decided to throw that idea out the window. We were fed hotdogs two other times this week. 

-I got to have a short interview with President Jackson :) Always so, so great to see him and his wife. She gave us cookies made with American brown sugar. Mmmmm. They also told us how President Jackson signed up to sell "student survival kits" on BYU campus when he was a student there, and got called into President Oak´s office and was almost expelled because, much to his surprise, the kits contained coffee. Hahaha. He had to respond to all of the parent´s complaint letters personally. Hermana Jackson had a lot of fun telling us that story.

It was a pretty awesome week :) I´m so grateful for the Resurrection of the Savior and all that means for us. I loved what D Todd Christofferson said about this:

Consider for a moment the significance of the Resurrection in resolving once and for all the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth and the great philosophical contests and questions of life. If Jesus was in fact literally resurrected, it necessarily follows that He is a divine being. No mere mortal has the power in himself to come to life again after dying. Because He was resurrected, Jesus cannot have been only a carpenter, a teacher, a rabbi, or a prophet. Because He was resurrected, Jesus had to have been a God, even the Only Begotten Son of the Father.

Therefore, what He taught is true; God cannot lie.²⁵Therefore, He was the Creator of the earth, as He said.²⁶Therefore, heaven and hell are real, as He taught.²⁷Therefore, there is a world of spirits, which He visited after His death.²⁸Therefore, He will come again, as the angels said,²⁹ and “reign personally upon the earth.”³⁰Therefore, there is a resurrection and a final judgment for all.³¹

Given the reality of the Resurrection of Christ, doubts about the omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence of God the Father—who gave His Only Begotten Son for the redemption of the world—are groundless. Doubts about the meaning and purpose of life are unfounded. Jesus Christ is in fact the only name or way by which salvation can come to mankind. The grace of Christ is real, affording both forgiveness and cleansing to the repentant sinner. Faith truly is more than imagination or psychological invention. There is ultimate and universal truth, and there are objective and unchanging moral standards, as taught by Him.

Christ lives! I´m grateful to be one of his "soldiers," as Sunny has begun to call us :) I´m grateful for the Everlasting Gospel, the new temple in Florida, and for the addition to our eternal family!

I love you guys tons!

Love,

Hna Grover

*(editor:  "Hello mountains!" is a reference to the clumsy code phrase Bob yelled to best bud Steve Brayton, when Steve lit a camp fire near Mount Timp where Bob would propose to Melissa.)

Email 39 - "FOR SURE getting baptized this Saturday!!"

Madrid Temple Grounds

A Noche de Hogar that we had last night. That´s Rosanna and my comp to the side, Marcelino (an investigator of ours), Carlota (recent convert of the Elders. Sweetest lady ever), Elders Helske/ Mullins, and then me and a kid named Noslen who accompanies all of the missionaries all the time because he´s getting ready to go on a mission himself :)

"Enjoying my first Spain milkshake at a 'classic American diner' haha. ´Wasn´t too bad :)"

Hello family!

Crazy things happenin´ back home! Cute swan babies being born... Kate getting into jazz band... crazy scores on the Toy Story ride at Disney... flashbacks to young family Grover days... and somethin´ Mike´s working on just might rank up there too ;)

We´ve had a really packed week. And this week should be pretty interesting, seeing as it´s "Semana Santa." We´re actually not allowed to be anywhere near the activities they´ve got going on, haha. They get pretty intense with their parades and I´ve heard it´s actually a little frightening... They take down the statues of the Savior that they have in their Cathedrals and carry them on their backs, and stuff like that. The stake´s doing a concert on Saturday, though, so we´ll see if we can find some people to bring to that :)

As you know, we´re teaching a lot of people, but here are the ones we´re focusing on:

S---y - he´s FOR SURE getting baptized this Saturday!! We´ve got the service planned out and everything. This guy is golden, and I´ve loved teaching him. After all of this time working together, Hermana Palomino and I finally have the chance to witness someone make this covenant with the Lord. So exciting!!!

J---e - he´s an 11-yr-old investigator that the other Hnas were teaching. After teaching him, I´ve decided that teaching baptismal-age children in absolutely my favorite. Especially in this case, because his mom (who has a very deep testimony of the Gospel, but is just recently returning to activity) is right there supporting and teaching him along the way. She also makes us marvelous food, haha. The only tricky thing is that she has 3 jobs and can´t meet very often.

F------o - Good ole F------o. He´s so, sooooo ready for baptism, but he´s still scared. He´s been having nightmares that he´s baptized, in the church, and then falls back into his alcohol addiction. Poor guy. We´re doing absolutely everything possible to help him, and if things go according to plan, we might just have another baptism this weekend (haha, for how many weeks have we been saying that now?)

Also worthy of note:

R-----o and V-------a came to church yesterday! They nervously asked questions about everything from why the deacons put a hand behind their back as they pass the sacrament, to what the word "temple" means, to why I have a bookmark in my hymnal. But they stayed all three hours! And we got to go back to YW to be with Valentina :)

A----o has some major doubts about Thomas S. Monson (we watched a talk with him last week) so that´s keeping him from progressing. He believes so firmly in everything else, though, that we´re not too concerned. We´ll keep working with him on that :)

Needless to say, we´ve been busy. And the weather´s been ridiculous! It keeps changing! It´s getting hot, too. Should be interesting...

Anyway, I´ve been listening to the Conference sessions that I missed on my recording device (I´ll probably print out some of the ones you sent me, Mom. Thanks so much for organizing all that!), and I LOVED the Priesthood Session!! I loved what President Uchtdorf had to say about the ongoing restoration of the church.

The church wasn´t restored, it´s being restored. And we´re a part of that restoration!

´Definitely gives a new outlook on the work we´re doing, huh.

President Uchtdorf encouraged us the think about what we want our contribution to be to the most significant period in history- as we prepare for the Second Coming of Christ.

My companion had to stay home sick on Friday (she´s better now), which was a blessing in disguise for two reasons: I got to reorganize the whole apartment, and I got to have some more study time :) At the end of the day, we watched "The Testaments" together. Such a classic. I´ve seen that movie so many times, and I´ll never forget the first time I saw it when I was little and we were visiting Utah. 

This time, though, the very last lines that show up at the end of the movie caught my attention: "The Messiah has come, and will come again."

We really ought to be filled with the same hope and faith that filled the people we read about in the Book of Mormon as they awaited the coming of the Savior. We´re preparing for His Second Coming!

...I love Mondays and getting a chance to look back on the week. There´s always some kind of theme to what I was studying, haha.

Anyway, I hope we can all keep that in mind and avoid "sleeping through the Restoration." :) I know we´re a part of something super great, and I know Heavenly Father´s pleased by the way we´re doing what we can to return to Him as a family :)

Love as always!!!

Have a great week :)

-Hna Grover

P.S.

I´m sure I´ve said it several times, but it makes me so happy to see pics of you all hanging out. That´s so, so awesome.

I´m glad you´re getting to brush up on some French, too! As we were walking up to the temple grounds the other day, a YSA stopped us and started talking to me in English. He was on his way to the temple, and he was visiting from France! So fun.

Thanks for the updates!

Love,

Chrissy

Email 38 - "We have so much work! I love it!"

"Hermana Palomino and I decided that we´d had enough lazy p-days, so today we ventured deep into the big bad city and got some tourist shots :)"

 

"They have popsicle stands all over the place here with popsicles made of pure pureéd fruit. Mmmm. Mango´s the best one."

"We´ve walked past a bakery that had these cookies smiling at me for far too long... and then we finally bought some. :) True story."

"This was a happy moment in our piso after our satisfying service project (first time wearing jeans in months, haha)."

"Conference reunions :D"

Hello my wonderful family!  

Thank you for all the emails!!! I love love love hearing how you guys are doing :D I got your letter for my comp all translated, Dad, thanks again for sending that :) I´m going to wait ´til the printed version comes to give her the translation along with it.

And thanks for the letter from Longboat Key, Mom! I also finally got the Liahonas that you sent to Gijón in December, haha. Thank you!

My finger is indeed still attached, and I´m starting to get used to playing the piano/ typing/using utensils without using my pointer finger, haha. Definitely a skill I didn´t think I´d ever need... It´s finally starting to look a little more normal, haha, so no worries!

Hna Thunborg had to laugh yesterday when I walked in to the chapel with skinned knees and elbows because I´d just fell on some cobblestones. It reminded us of Neville in Harry Potter... "why´s it always me?" Hahaha, oh well.

Anyways, despite my battle wounds ;) this was an awesome week!! Now that we´ve taken on our old piso-mates´ area in addition to our own, we have so much work!! I love it! That being said, it´s going to be a little harder to keep you all updated on everyone, but I´ll do my best :)

We haven´t met with F------o in over a week because he´s been working late, and we´re pretty worried about him. He sounds pretty awful on the phone each time we call. All that´s left for him is making a decision to let this beautiful Gospel change his life!

S---y is progressing super well. He came to two of the Conference sessions yesterday, and he wore a tie! He´s been going to the employment center that´s here on the temple grounds, and he made a bunch of friends there that also got him working on his family history! We had no idea that this was going on, so we were very surpised when the Conference finished and he was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of members from the stake! So cool! We´ve got him set for baptism on the 19th, but we might just bump that forward. 

A----o is also progessing, and unfortunately, wasn´t able to make it to Conference. He actually showed up to the chapel, but felt intimidated when he walked in and saw everyone in suits, so he left!! AH! (That was a very, very good idea, Dad, to give Ben and Bradley a heads up on that... we definitely won´t forget it next time!) The cool thing, though, is that the temple caught his attention, so he stayed on the temple grounds with his daughter, simply enjoying the Spirit that´s there :) He even recognized some of the symbolism in the stained-glass windows! Most of the people here that have been members their whole lives don´t even recognize that until we give them a tour!

And we finally saw some progression in R-----o and V-------a this week!!! On Saturday morning, we went with our mission-mother (Rosanna- AWESOME member. She´s always feeding us, haha) and attacked that man´s house with scrubbers and bleach in hand. Housework has been neglected in his apartment for a pretty significant amount of time, so it was a very satisfying service opportunity. Almost three hours after we´d started, the house was sparkling, and the Spirit just flooded that little piso. It was so cool!!! And he even prayed after our spiritual thought. The two of them also came to a Conference session and then we all went to Rosanna´s to eat. Good, good stuff.

So Conference was pretty amazing, huh? We got to watch it in the chapel with the whole stake, and I got to see Hna Fuller, Hna Cançado, and Hna Thunborg!! We were able to watch the majority of it in english, but we couldn´t watch the Sunday afternoon session, because it´s on past our missionary bedtime :( ´Looking forward to reading it soon, though!!!

The overarching theme of this Conference, for me, was: stay on track, persevere, and be the LOVING, faithful, happy, grateful people you outta be! And, if you´ll just keep your focus on the Savior, you´re gonna be just fine. 

That´s definitely something we´re constantly working on helping those we´re teaching understand. We show up to appointments all happy and smiley, with a message of hope and joy, and witness as past relationships, unemployment, doctrinal misunderstandings, pure disbelief, addictions, the death of their dog, their broken washing machine, what they saw last night on the news and every other trial you can think of, builds a spiritual barrier- preventing them from accepting what we teach. A lot of them think they´ve already ruined their "4 minutes," and it sometimes takes a lot of patience as we try to help them overcome their pasts.

But, little by little, miracles happen :) We honestly see miracles everyday! Conference was such a boost, as always. I know that the Heavens are open, and I love seeing its influence on our investigators and less actives.

Keep being awesome, family o´ mine, keep watching for miracles, keep reading the Conference talks, and, remember, you are infinitely more important to God than a tree ;)

Love you tons!!!!

-Hna Grover