Email 63 - "I'm finally the missionary I've wanted to be!"

Chrissy's photos from Toledo, Spain

 

 

"In one of the swords shops, they also had figurines... check out the ones we found :) They also had the sword of Laban in there."

"And the day cometh that the words of the book which were sealed shall be read upon the house tops :)"


¡Eyyy mi querida familia!

Can we just take this in for a sec? I´m a ridiculously lucky missionary, haha. All of you sound awesome. I´m so, so glad to hear about how well things are going. I understand that there´s probably a filter in there somewhere that keeps out most of the lame things that happen during your week, but I´m just thrilled to see every week that I still have a happy, healthy, eternal family that´s active in the church and doing cool stuff.

I miss you guys. Like, not the bad kind of homesick nonsense, but I am excited to see all of this in person someday. :) Keep it up!

As for me, well, I´m a missionary, doing missionary things here in Spain, and it´s pretty great :) I just love Hermana Hillman. It´s weird, I feel like it´s the exact same relationship that I had with Hermana Zitting...except now I´m  the senior missionary who´s like, "hey, chill out, missionary work is cool and fun and you do it like this! Woohoo!" We´re really enjoying each other, and I feel like we´re genuinely motivated out of love, which is refreshing and fun.

It was an interesting week, though, because we had intercambios (exchanges), a far away zone training, an even farther away concert put on by a senior couple working in the MTC, and a ward activity, and poor Hna H got a pretty rotten cold (health has been recovered), so our effectiveness took a bit of a blow. But let me tell you about some of the cool things that happened anyway:

E-----o and Y-----a. I like talking about E-----o and Y-----a. They´re GOLDEN. I can´t remember if I mentioned them last week (I think so...), but they´re the ones we´ve had only one lesson with, and it was ALL over the place, because the sweet member who came with us wanted to tell them absolutely everything, haha. But, apparently they didn´t mind it, because since last week, they´ve come to 2 English classes, Noche de Hogar (FHE), the ward activity (they brought food!!) AND all three hours of church...for their third time. E-----o even volunteered to give the prayer after English class. 

Can I just remind you all again that we haven´t even really gotten to teach the Restoration yet?

Thankfully, we´re finally meeting with them again on Thursday, so hopefully we´ll get them going with some doctrine here pretty quick. 

P------a is progressing! I don´t think I´ve told you about P------a yet, but she´s a single mom of a four-yr-old who´s best friends with Christina, a member of the church who also has a four-yr-old. We had a super fun NdH with them this last week, and we went over the Restoration with an example that was basically like playing the game "telephone." Afterwards, not only did we eat some of the most amazing Romanian food I´ve ever tasted in my life (it was like a ham and green beans stew and some crazy flavorful rice), but P------a drove us home and talked the whole time about the great things she sees in her friend and how she raises her family. She really notices a difference and really wants it to be part of her life. 

The intercambio I had with Hermana Fowers was super cool. We had an intercambio together about 5 months ago, and we both just couldn´t get over the difference we could see in each other and ourselves. It was an extremely validating experience.  5 months ago, we´d both thought we were good missionaries, haha. But there was an undeniable difference this time. We both speak Spanish WAY more comfortably, we both teach better, contact better, and just do absolutely everything in a much better way, haha. (Have I gotten that across yet? We´re SO DIFFERENT)

One thing that´s great about Hna Fowers, too, is how she´ll see things she admires in people, and then doesn´t think twice about telling them right then and there about the good things they do. So basically it was just a really uplifting 24 hours, haha.

We had international night again! Haha, I love transfers, because the same activities happen all the time! This time was particularly fun, because we got permission to wear jeans and dance "Cotton Eyed Joe" for everyone, hahaha. They all loved it. The video´s apparently all over Facebook, so if you find Andres Vera and add him, I´m sure you can see it. Everyone made amazing food, too. Yolanda brought fritada, which is possibly the most delicious, fatty meat ever. Soooooo good. I also ate about 3 bowls of arroz con leche (which I HATED at the beginning of my mission...but it´s my favorite now, haha).

More awesome things!

The Sullivans, the couple working at the MTC for the last year and a half, have both sung in MoTab and are just amazing amazing musicians. So all the missionaries in the Madrid area (that´s 4 whole zones of missionaries) had permission to go to the concert they put on as a goodbye as they finish their mission. So, I got to go back to the chapel where I served in Madrid before!!! Unfortunately, there were only two members from 8th Ward that showed up, but then I also ran into an old English Class student who got BAPTIZED, and I had a mega-reunion with a ton of missionaries I haven´t seen in forever. Also, Elder Sullivan sang a part of New World Symphony with Hermana Sullivan on the piano ("Goin´ Home"). BEAUTIFUL.

And then we went to Toledo again today with the other Hermanas and the Office Elders, and A----s (who´s seriously the guy version of Hna P. He´s ALWAYS with the missionaries. Huge help). That was fun. During the train ride there, we saw all kinds of big green hills, and it was all foggy during the sun rise and I was totally thinking about the beautiful scenary in Pride and Prejudice the whole time. Sooo pretty. 

Because we got up atrociously early to head to Toledo, I haven´t taken a sec to look back at what I was studying this week, haha. But like I mentioned earlier, I´ve been noticing a big change in myself as a missionary lately. I guess it took me 14 months to get it down, but I feel like I´m finally the missionary I´ve wanted to be. I mean, there will always, always be things to improve, but I feel really pleased with what I´m doing out here. 

We all have things to improve, right? Well you all have my personal invitation to get going on whatever that next step is and then just enjoy how awesome it feels. :)

I love you all sooo much. Keep being awesome and keep telling me about all the awesome things you´re doing. 

Love,

Hna Grover

PS- Please send a HUGE apology to my buddies Elise Carter and Becca Duff. Hna Mather got transferred up to Gijon, and she found letters from them in that apartment, and that blessed woman forwarded them to me. So I just got them!! I had no idea they´d written to me, and I feel super duper bad... just tell ´em I love them to death and I was thrilled to get their letters :) Also, if you could shoot me their email addresses, that´d be stupendous. :) Thanks!

Email 62 - "One of the Best Weeks of My Mission!"

Chrissy and her new companion Hermana Hillman

"Our new piso! The most 'Utah' looking building in all of Spain... aside from maybe the temple, haha. We only live in a tiny part of that building, but we have stellar water-pressure, a cute little balcony, and like I said before, I can drink water from the tap again, so life is good :)"

"Running into HERMANA FULLER"

 "My new district"

  "The metro benches I´ve "missed" so badly... (so the metro does exist here, it just never actually helps us get where we´re trying to go, haha, so we just walk)"

 "The rain in Spain rarely came...unless you´re outside contacting."

Hi family :)

Yep, still in "Zion!" We´ve had a little bit of every kind of weather this week, but I´m told the cold´s starting up again this week. Oof.

So here´s the down-low on my new area and comp:

-So it´s super weird being in Madrid again. All of my other areas were just SO drastically different in every possible way, and now I´m back here with the brick buildings and hispanics. So sometimes it feels like I´m back in Vallecas with Hna Palomino, haha. In all of my other areas, there was a lot of more-or-less efficient public transportation, but we don´t really have any of that here. The little roads are pretty crazy, and we just walk absolutely EVERYWHERE. I mean, we did a LOT of walking before...but now I feel like we just never stop, haha. 

-The ward here´s mega-strong, which is awesome. Our bishop is a wealthy, world-traveling German guy who´s next-door neighbors with President Jackson and prefers to speak English with us. The leadership´s all way strong, too. The only major bummers of this ward is the TINY chapel (they have to split Sacrament Meeting into 3 seperate rooms- you have to watch the meeting on a screen)...and there´s no pianist. BUT all of the more important things seem to be going stupendously. The members are all way nice.

-Hermana Hillman is the Mormon, Canadian version of Kirsten Duntz from "Elizabethtown," haha (just the way she looks and talks). She´s studying business at BYU, and we´ve gotten along beautifully this week. She´s super chill about everything and we went crazy with some goals to hit the pavement this coming week. I´m stoked! She reminds me a lot of how I was at the beginning of the mission, and I think our new companionship is giving us both huge confidence boosts :) She´s basically just made it really easy to love her to death already.

-I´m basically surrounded by spiritual giants in my new district. I don´t know why, and it probably shouldn´t be like this, but I kind of feel like I need to be more on my toes with contacting and things like that because we run into the APs in the streets at least once a day, haha. I have a lot of missionaries to look up to!

So this week we had just an absurd amount of failed appointments. Like... it was just absurd, haha. But with that being said, this was one of the best weeks of my mission! We just worked HARD. Hna Hillman and I are already really comfortable with each other, and we´ve both been making a lot of progress this week with our weaknesses. I was almost giddy the other day when I discovered how easy it was for me to do something that´s been hard for me ever since I started the mission. And like I said, we´ve both been having mega-confidence boosts.

Here are some of the people we´re focused on:

-A---l: a guy in his early 40´s, SUPER humble. He´s had almost all of the lessons already, and he really wants to be baptized. He just needs to have his girlfriend´s heart softened so they can have a reasonable conversation to decide if they´re going to separate or get married so he can be baptized.

-P------a: a 30-something-yr-old lady, member reference, who had a LOT of doubts the first time I met her. We had a very spiritual lesson with her about the purpose and pattern of prophets, though, and in her closing prayer, she said, "Thank you, because I think I´m finally finding what I´ve been looking for."

-T-----a: young mom of a 4-yr-old. Works a lot. She has a lot of faith, but she´s looking for her answers in the wrong way. She just doesn´t seem to get how the spirit works yet. We´re meeting with her tonight and that´s what we´re focusing on :)

-E-----o, Y-----a and D----n- sweet, VERY faithful family. We had our first lesson with them on Saturday, and they came to church! They want to know EVERYTHING right away, and unfortunately, the member we brought to the lesson with us, thought he could tell them everything right away, haha. ...Two hours later, when we finally left the house, I think they were a little overwhelmed. They definitely have great intentions, though. I hope everything works out :)

I just feel like I´m really helping people. I looked over my week this morning to see what I could write home to you all about, and I just want you all to know how much I love the Gospel. I know I´ve said it before, but I love seeing how it helps people. The Spirit was strong in the lessons we had this week. We may not have had a lot, but the lessons we did have were solid. It felt great.

I love love love focusing on people´s relationship with God. I don´t think there´s anything else that brings the Spirit so strongly, and so quickly to the room. It almost seems like it´s the topic Heavenly Father most anxiously testifies of with the Holy Ghost, because it´s the foundation for everything else in the Gospel. People need to know that Heavenly Father loves them.

One quote we´ve found ourselves sharing quite a bit is one I found in President Eyring´s talk, "To My Grandchildren." It´s by President George Q. Cannon, and it goes like this:

“There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God, and that He has actually given His angels—invisible beings of power and might—charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping.”

I hope you all have an awesome awesome week. I love hearing about how everybody´s doing. Please know that we´re doing great :)

-Hna Grover

PS- we found a "Taste of America" store today! We bought Goldfish, Reeses, pancake mix, Sniders pretzels and maple syrup. Yum. There were semisweet chocolate chips... but they were 6 euros, haha. Crazy. I had already spent 20 euros on what I just mentioned! I still have a can of pumpkin and a bag of chocolate chips left, but those Ghiardelli choc chips are always welcome anytime you want to stick ´em in a package :)

Email 61 - Goodbye to the Canary Islands! Hermana Grover Returns to Madrid!

Saying Goodbye

"These two Elders... basically like being with Nate and Klinton again, haha. Super fun. ´gonna miss them."

 

"SWEET, darling, humble woman named Soledad who´s kinda inactive because of poor health. She has Lupus (does that translate in English like that?). But she´s so adorable. I love that lady."

"Teaching Elder Bybee how to juggle last P-day"

"Eating at "Panera Bread" (cooking just keeps growing on me...)

 and my last "dessert war" entry, chocolate cheesecake :)"

"My last look at the Island!"

Hey family!

Welp, as you´ve heard from my sweet buddy Hna Larsen (editor:  from her blog), I´ve left the islands and I´m back in Madrid! I´m in a pueblo called Alcobendas, and I´m thrilled about it. Everyone I talk to raves about this area. When the Elders picked me up at the airport, they, and all the missionaries I´ve run into since, have said, "Hermana! Bienvenida a Zion,´´ where President lives, and all of the office Elders and APs and all that are in my district. I´m definitely going to be learning a lot!

My companion is Hermana Hillman, she´s from Canada, and her family owns a house in Florida! Just south of Orlando!! She said that they´ve spent many a summer in Cocoa Beach. Crazy, huh?

So this means that 2 of my streaks continue... 3 transfers in every area... and a companion from a different country everytime! (Switzerland, the US, Ecuador, Spain, Argentina, and now Canada!). I´m excited to get going. Hna Hillman told me that they´ve got a lot of work here, and that the ward is just golden. I just got off my flight, and we´re running low on Pday time, so I can´t really tell you much about what´s going on, haha, because I still don´t know myself! But, like I said, I´m excited.

While I was super bummed about leaving paradise, I´m looking forward to being able to drink from the tap again, go TO THE TEMPLE, and have Thanksgiving and Christmas with President and Sister Jackson. :D

As always, goodbyes were a drag. It was Stake Conference, so they couldn´t announce that I was leaving or let me share my testimony like they usually do, so unfortunately, a lot of the members still don´t know I´m gone... those that found out I was leaving, however, certainly didn´t make it easy!

Speaking of Stake Conference- you all remember Abu, right? Well, just before starting the meeting (which was done over Skype because the stake´s comprised of all of the islands), Abu walks into the chapel, which the members said he´s never done before, looks at us all for a minute, raises his arm and holds up three fingers and says, in English, "God bless everybody here. In the name of the Lord. Thank you." ...and then one of the members escorted him back outside. I´m going to miss him.)

Unfortunately, everything seemed to be slowing down a bit in Las Palmas this last week. It was pretty frustrating. We don´t really have anyone progressing over there... so I don´t have much updates. We had some new investigators and worked a TON with the area book, and I´m sure it´ll be crazy busy again in no time :)

As I assume you also saw on Hna Larsen´s blog, we got to see a SUPER awesome women´s broadcast where Elder Bednar, Elder Ballard, Elder Hollstrom, and Elder Texiera all spoke to the women of Europe. It was super cool.

Like I said, I´m running low on time and I´d really love to send you all the bajillion photos I took this week, so I´m going to get going on that and I´ll write more if I have time. I was able to write a quick letter to Mom on the plane, and I told you a bit more about the conference- so if you want to include any of that on the blog, you´re welcome to :)

I love you so much!!!!

-Hna Grover

PS- I did get the new Liahona before I left, but I´m guessing that the package probably got to my piso this afternoon, haha. I´ll send Hna Irigoyen a copy of my ID so she can pick it up for me and we´ll see how long it takes to make its way to the Office :) -which is now in my area! Woot.

Email 60 - "Hello from the hottest place on the planet! ´Good thing we have an ocean breeze :)‏" - Great Moments with Fellow Missionaries, and Lots of Awesome Photos

"My buddy Hna P :)"

Editor:  It looks like Elder Bybee captured Hermana Irigoyen and Hermana Grover in the act of teaching a lesson in a park.  It appears this nice gentleman just needs a nametag, and he could be a missionary himself! :)

"I´ve been cooking a lot. I love it. :) I made chicken wraps, asian salad, shrimp pasta... mmm."

"And we splurged and went to a Japanese restaurant!"

 "Here´s the good ole Canarian flag :)"

"Chillin´ at the Larsens´ :D"

"More from the Larsens :) We got to hear their love story, haha, and Elder Larsen started 'telling lies.' It was adorable." 

 "More from Zone Conference. First time the whole zone´s been together since May!"

Helloooooooo

So this week had a little bit of absolutely everything in it, and it started out with (as you probably guessed based on last week´s photos) The best Pday ever. We spent almost all Pday in that beautiful park, getting fried by the sun and playing a huge game of Ultimate. Woot!

And then, after Pday ended, the Hermanas had a devotional with the Larsens, and we got to spend the night at their house :) Saying it was marvelous doesn´t cut it, haha. 

Zone Conference the next day was incredible, too. Anyone preparing to serve a mission should plan on learning a LOT from those meetings, and should definitely attend every one with a list of questions, because they´ll find answers to all of them.

As for our investigators this week... that´s been a little frustrating. We´re not really seeing anyone progressing at all, and it kinda got to a point where I felt like I just wasn´t helping anybody by being out here. BUT Nephi promised that those with faith will see the tender mercies of the Lord, so I put that to the test and decided to ask for really specific blessings in my prayers.

(Elder Shumway, as he was bearing his testimony at the end of the mission, said, "there have been times during my mission when I have felt like I could just ask for whatever I wanted, and I´ve seen miracles." Pretty cool, right?)

And although I´ve always thought I´ve always had faith, I realized this week that the complete confidence and trust that comes from real faith was still kind of absent...and then I started seeing the specific things I was asking for. It was reeeally cool.

For example, I prayed one morning for an easy contact. I still struggle to stop people on the streets (I can talk to ém all day long... but only after my companion has stopped them first, haha), so I basically asked for the Lord to drop a contacting opportunity in my lap. As I was praying, the face of a guy we used to see everyday on a bench, but had never talked to and hadn´t seen in a couple of weeks, came to mind. I said, "alright, if I see that guy, I promise I´ll stop him."  That afternoon, we ran into him on the street. 

Then, I prayed to see if Heavenly Father could change my desires and help me want to contact. The next morning, I honestly didn´t make the connection, but I saw something weird happening in myself. I felt like I not only should contact people, but I could and I wanted to. I didn´t make the connection until that night as I was closing the day with a prayer, and I realized that it´s exactly what I´d asked for that morning. It was crazy.  There were a lot more examples, too. Heavenly Father answers prayers, folks!

Okay, I´ll tell you about one more. I was praying to see evidence that I´d really actually helped someone this week. And as we sat down to start a lesson with María Jose, I threw out the phrase, "as we were thinking about what to share with you earlier this week..." she stopped me and said, "you think about me before coming to visit me?"

We explained how we pray for those we visit and try to receive spiritual guidance on what to teach, and she said, "oh well that makes sense. I was wondering how you always teach exactly what I need to hear. Your visits really help me a lot." Woohooo!!!

During the Zone Conference, President Jackson quoted a lot from President Eyring´s talk, "Rise to Your Call," and this is the part that caught my attention:

"If I think only of my own performance, my sadness deepens. But when I remember that the Lord promised that His power would go with me, I begin to look for evidence of what He has done in the lives of the people I am to serve. I pray to see with spiritual eyes the effects of His power."

That´s what I´ve been trying to do this week.

Hna Irigoyen and I are working on helping people progress or having the courage to leave them if they aren´t moving forward. This hasn´t been a particularly easy time of my mission, but I´m learning SO much! Transfers are this week, and I wouldn´t be surprised if I´m called out to serve in another area, but I´m really grateful for the transfers I´ve had here in Las Palmas. It´s definitely changed who I am :)

Thanks for your prayers, folks!! I´ve been really feeling them this week. When I got the last-minute call to head out to the islands, I was fortunate enough to receive a priesthood blessing from President Jackson. I told Mom about this in a letter, but he said that now, more than ever, I would need the prayers of my family and I would notice the power I was recieving from them. That was definitely an inspired blessing!

I love you guys!!! Have a great week!

-Hna Grover