Email 56 - "The Foundation of My Testimony"

"I´m sorry. I really slacked off on photos this week... But here´s some of our most recent lesson with Danna, we made little Standards of Liberty for how to be united as families. Danna´s is so cute. At the bottom of hers, she wrote, 'To get to the sun' (celestial kingdom)."

Hey... the fam! (Elder Wiltbank and I discovered this week that we could both easily quote entire scenes from obscure 90´s movies like "What About Bob," and "Groundhog Day." Very refreshing, haha.  Editor:  Bill Murray calls Richard Dreyfuss' family the fam in "What About Bob.")

How´s it goin´? I was reading all of your emails about the awesome things you´re all doing and almost forgot again that I needed to write. Thank you so much for keeping me updated!!  Oh, and I got Aida´s letter this week, next time you see her, tell her I´m STOKED to hear that she´s heading on her mission- and I´m going to miss her! I´ll send her a letter as soon as I can :)

Soooo, unfortunately, there´s really not a whole lot to tell this week, haha. We´re basically in the same sitch as last week, on-and-off seeing our amazing investigators.. and then going 2 or 3 weeks without having a lesson with them again! Ah! We did finally see S----a again! She lives with her three younger siblings in a center for kids and teenagers that have been taken away from their parents, but her mom (L--i) is in the process of regaining the rights to have them at home again (yay!). Anyway, it´s a religious center, and they told her that she couldn´t bring the Book of Mormon inside. So now she reads when she goes to Willy Roka´s dance academy! 

She told us that she´s been feeling the Spirit as she reads, and she and her mom "just know" that the church is true. She said her mom already has the Restoration pamphlet almost memorized... haha. Please pray that we´ll be able to finally teach her!

Other than that, we´ve been working a lot with the records from past missionaries, trying to find people who have regained interest, and doing lots more contacting (I actually remember you telling me that contacting tactic, Dad, before I left on the mission. That´s actually something I´ve used quite a bit! It works beautifully here, because when you actually do need directions, people will put their arm around you and even walk you to where you need to go. They know they need to take care of their tourists so they´ll come back, haha ;).

Oh, and we got to see President and Sister Jackson!!! We got to be with them for about a half hour as they stopped by all of the islands to do missionary interviews. Our mission president really really reeally loves his missionaries!! We´ll get to see them again in a few weeks for zone conference!

And our new district has gotten along stupendously right off the bat. The other companionship here in Las Palmas is awesome, too. We´re going to the chapel in a few minutes to play some ping pong :)

Our first district meeting together was great. We talked about the what/ how/ why of our missionary objective, emphasizing that we´re doing everything we´re doing because of love. I was impressed by how quickly the Spirit filled the room as Elder Dyer asked us each to share an experience when we´d felt Heavenly Father´s love for us or for another person.

I talked about the foundation of my testimony. I don´t remember how old I was, but I remember coming home from a particularly powerful fast and testimony meeting, and saying a prayer that night. As I prayed, I just asked if God was really there. I´ll never forget what I felt! I remember just being completely filled up by a perfect love I´d never felt before. It was the most powerful spiritual experience I´ve ever had. There was absolutely no way I could have denied in that moment that God exists and loves me as His daughter. I´ve never felt the Spirit again as strongly as I did that night, but sometimes I´ll get a little glimpse of it, something reminding me that, "you´ve felt this. Don´t forget that I´m here." :)

(though my situation isn´t exactly comparable to his, the new mormon message that came out reminded me of that experience: http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3701964025001 ) 

Anyway, we talked about how this perfect love Heavenly Father has for us is the most desirable thing we can posses (1 Nephi 11:22-23)... but if people have never felt it, they won´t know how desirable it is. We decided to focus more on that, on the "why" of our missionary objective, during street contacting. People may not respond as well to the "what," (Hi, we´re full-time missionaries inviting people to Jesus), or the "how," (Hey, can we come by to teach you a message about God?), but they might just respond to the "why," (We´re here because God loves us and He loves you).

Aside from that, I was looking a lot at the talk, "Your Four Minutes," by Bishop Gary E. Stevenson.  He said: 

"Dear friends, you are in the midst of an exhilarating journey. In some ways, you are racing down the half-pipe or sled track, and it can be challenging to perform each element or navigate each turn along the way. But remember, you’ve prepared for this for millennia. This is your moment to perform. This is your four minutes! The time is now!"

It´s cool to think that Heavenly Father loves us and values us so much that He didn´t just send us down here to see how we´d do, but He prepared us for "millennia" beforehand. We didn´t just have the Council in Heaven, shrug our shoulders and decide to "go for it," and then come down here. Heavenly Father loves us too much for it to have gone like that :)

I love youuuuu! Have a great week!

Love,

Hna Grover