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!