Email 54 - "Truth Is Truth!"

Florida connection to Chrissy and her mission president!

Hiya family!

We don´t have a whole lot of time today, we just got back from Roque Nublo- the mountain in the middle of our little island. We had a fun little hike getting up there, the highest point here in Gran Canaria :) It was a fun way to spend the last Pday of the transfer. I just realized that we left my memory card reader up in the piso, and the cable I just tried gave me the options of either copying all of my photos or deleting them, haha, so if we have time I´ll grab that reader later. I don´t think we´ll get to it though.... I´ll have lots of photos next week!!!

That´s so awesome that you were able to meet Megan!!! (Editor:  See photo, above.  Sister Megan Jackson is Chrissy's friend from BYU who is serving in the Florida Orlando Mission, third from left.  Sister Jackson's dad is Chrissy's mission president in Spain!  Melissa and I received permission from Sister Jackson's mission president to travel over to Kissimmee and take Sister Jackson and her companion Sister Day to lunch...so awesome!) I´m sure she´ll love those CDs, Mom. That was a great idea. We just listened to those two in the car with the Larsens on the way to the hike today, and Sister Larsen was a big fan. She and I talked all about homeschooling (which she did for 16 years). Oh, and she was very, very touched by your thank-you card the other week. She said it was the first letter she´s received on her mission :) ...I guess when you can Face-time your family whenever you want, you don´t really have a need for mail, haha.

This was a much better week than the past few :) We´re still not being able to set up any baptismal dates, but as a district, we´ve been focusing on helping each other remember that our God is a "fourth-watch God," and we´re trying to go by His timetable, and not by how many weeks are left in the transfer ;) (speaking of transfers, I can´t BELIEVE I´m already finishing my second transfer here. I´ll find out on Saturday if I get to stay on the island a little longer!)

We´re all working hard to find new investigators, and we´ve been trying harder than ever to talk with everyone in the streets. We find a lot of pass-along cards left on the sidewalks, haha. We always check the numbers on the back to see which companionship it´s from :)

So A--a LOVED EFY, as we knew she would. We´re going to meet with them on Wednesday to get the full scoop, but Y-----a told us that A--a came back a completely different person, and that she wishes there was an EFY for adults, too. :) And N--i was able to come to church!! She was having a very legitimately hard time being left behind during EFY, but we spent some time with her this week and had fun. :)

One thing we planned with the YW was watching the Joseph Smith movie (the hour long one), and that turned out fantastically. We´d taught S----a (I think I mentioned her before, she´s a 16-yr-old member reference) the 1st lesson a couple of days previous, and she loved the whole movie. Halfway through, her mom (L--i) showed up! She picked a kind of inoportune moment to walk in, because it was right when Joseph Smith silenced the jail guards in the name of the Savior and then it goes into a long sequence on the intense suffering of the early Saints, haha... but she loved it! We gave her a copy, and when she came to church on Sunday, she told me that she´d not only read the pamphlet we gave her several times, but she´d watched the whole movie every day that week!!!

One talk this Sunday was about Joseph Smith, and when he started quoting the First Vision, L--i turned to me and finished his sentance. She grinned and said, "I know that part by heart now!"

We´re going to teach them again tonight. ´Pretty stoked about their progress already.

We also met this week with a guy named E-----e, a doctor whose intention for meeting ended up being teaching us about nutrition. 

He´s a very intelligent guy, and he told us how, the more he learns about science, the more evidence he finds that God exists. 

The fascinating thing about this lesson was his reaction to truths coming from a spiritual source, rather than from his scientific studies. He told us all about his understanding of agency and the need to make correct choices- we resolved a few doubts of his by reading parts of 2 Nephi 2. He talked to us about what he knew about the nature of mankind and how the Gospel simply can´t require that to change- we shared Mosiah 3:19, and felt the Spirit powerfully testify that what we were saying was true. Revelations from God were providing answers to fill in the gaps of his secular understanding.

Like I said, he´s an intelligent guy, and he knew all too well that if what we were teaching was true, it was going to make some big changes in his life. That´s not exaclty a mystery to the majority of the people we teach. Thus, when he felt that Spirit testifying of truth... he hopped up, cut us off, said a hurried goodbye, and straight-up ran back up his stairs into his apartment. Weird, huh?

During that visit, I couldn´t stop thinking about Elder Nelson, who said:  "Truth is truth! It is not divisible, and any part of it cannot be set aside. Whether truth emerges from a scientific laboratory of through revelation, all truth emanates from God."

I LOVE that quote!!! And I love that quiet, peaceful feeling from the Spirit that nudges me along as we teach pure truth. Sometimes I lack the faith to believe that other people can/will let themselves feel it too, but when we see it touch people, it´s beautiful! Seeing people understand and accept truth can be a lot easier when we´re teaching people English or explaining to tourists how to get to where they´re going- but helping them understand and accept divine, doctrinal truths is worth the extra effort and possibly the most satisfying thing anyone could sacrifice for!

I´m as tired as ever and still trekkin´ along with all we´ve got going on, but I´m happy! I´m still learning a lot about the Atonement but basically just doing everything I can to focus on other people and not think so much about my problems or the phone calls/emails I´m getting ALREADY about my flight home. So weird.

Have a good week, folks! I love ya more than I can possibly tell ya!

Love,

Hna Grover