Email 67 - Let's Be More Like Captain Moroni!

"Surprising our ward mission leader (named Segundo... which means "second" in English) for his birthday."

"Last district meeting"

 

  

 "Look what we found in a second-hand store window!"

 "A VERY typical Spanish meal appetizer is bread with that raw meat ham stuff, tomato, and olive oil with a little salt. It´s actually really delicious (did I think that at the beginning of my mission? NOPE! Haha)"

 "Another typical Spanish dish I hated before but LOVE now. Arroz con leche :) mmmmm"

"And some views from that side of the world..." 

  "Feeling very, very ready for us to get some iPads someday..."

 "Remember that ham stuff? Here´s the member, Juan, slicing it up for us.

I´ve told you about it, right? They basically cut the leg off the pig, stick in a ton of salt and then leave it underground for a few years. and then you EAT IT. Mmmm."

Cute, right? That´s me and Hna F (above) heading to our first area over a year ago, and then in the same place today (below) to take her to our last area! oh, missions....

  "The mission van that we´ve gotten to know pretty well... that´s what we get for being in the Office Elders´ area. Being in the back of a stick-shift van on windy roads isn´t so great, haha."

"This is at a place called Bustarviejo, about a 45-minute drive from where we usually proselyte. Some really strong members live out there and apparently have the missionaries over every transfer."

Hey! We had transfers! I don´t think I told you about that, haha, but we did!

We were NOT expecting this, but Hna Hillman and I are staying together!! We are so stoked. We´re both way pumped to get going on some goals that will get this companion of mine speakin´ some Spanish and get some folks baptized. And guess what? Hermana FULLER is now living across the street. We had a pretty fun reunion today, and I´m so, so excited to be in the same ward as her again. We started our missions together, and now we´ll end them together. Plus, we get Thanksgiving and Christmas together again. 

Haha, I just heard her speaking Spanish for the first time in about a year today... SO weird. ´Sounds like a pro. 

We also got to host some of the Hermanas last night that are headed home this week. I got to catch up with Hermana Cançado, and that was awesome. I also got the scoop from another Hermana on what´s been going on in Gijon. There wasn´t a whole lot of good news, to be honest, but ELVYN AND KATY GOT MARRIED LAST WEEK!!!!

I feel totally responsable for that.  I remember how he was a member reference from a different YSA girl.

Hna Zitting, "hey we should probably teach him with someone else so he doesn´t just connect what he´s learning with Aixa."

Hna Grover, "Agreed. Who do we get?"

Hna Z, "Katy?"

Hna Grover, "Haha, yeah okay, he´ll just fall in love with her, and then we´ll have YSA drama. Watch them get married if he gets baptized."

Yep.

Anyhoo, this was a pretty good week. We still aren´t having a lot of lessons, which is frustrating, but the lessons we have had have been super, well, productive!

P------a, for example, came to the weekly Family Home Evening we do in her member friend´s house, and everyone shared their testimonies of the Gospel. It caught her attention so much, that we were finally able to commit her to coming to church!! We told her that she could gain the same testimony if she would read, pray and attend church. And she´s doing it!! She came to church for the first time yesterday! We´re meeting with her again tonight :)

T-----a´s also been progressing a TON this week. FINALLY!!! We showed her the "Patterns of Light" videos by Elder Bednar, and she received so many answers on how revelation works. Thank goodness. We were honestly feeling a little hopeless... And after that lesson, she showed up to the ward Noche de Hogar, and Elder Franklyn started explaining the very clear prompting he recieved to teach that night about... revelation. He then proceeded to basically recover everything we´d just taught that day. T-----a shot me some suspicious looks, haha, but I think she was really touched to realized how much God wants her to understand that He´s there.

And I don´t think I´ve told you about E-----e, but he´s a 16-yr-old recent convert that we´ve been working with. He was going through a rough-patch right when I got here, and was often pretty absent during the lessons, but as we´ve been prayerfully preparing our lessons for him, we´ve seen a HUGE change. Now we´re just all studying topics on our own and sharing what we learned in the lessons. It´s been awesome. And he finally came back to church yesterday and passed the sacrament :)

So yeah, not many new investigators and definitely not many lessons, but we´re seeing some big steps in the right direction.

I don´t know if I´ve mentioned this before, but it´s been surprising me a lot how strong the temptation is to just kind of glide into life after the mission. I still have a whole transfer and a half left, but the adversary has been making me feel lately like I´m already wrapping up, so I might as well ease on into post-mission life. Just sloooow on down and have a smooth transition.  Ha, no thanks!!

It´s hard, though. I didn´t think it would be...so I´ve been studying a lot about diligence and a lot about Captain Moroni and how that guy just never ever stops! The war chapters have become my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon. I don´t think I´ll ever get sick of reading about Captain Moroni´s crazy stubbornness when it comes to the commandments of God. Let´s be more like that guy :)

We´ve been busy running around getting people to trains and such for transfers, and i just can´t think of what else I needed to tell you all.... it was cool being in the train station this afternoon, I ran into a ton of mission buddies. I even saw Hna Irigoyen! and Elder Wiltbank! that was cool.

Anyhoo, I better get to sending some pics, I did much better with that this week :)

Love you guys sooooo much.

-Hna Grover 

(I told one of the members about how Dad and Mike were always "bro gro" and "yo bro gro" to the McArthurs, and some of them thought that was so funny that now I´m being called "Hermana Gro")