Email 14 - "A Super Awesome Week!"

 

Oviedo's Mount Naranco on Preparation Day 

 

 

Editor:  Notice the rainbow on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiya, family!

 

This was actually a super awesome week! I can´t believe it´s P-day again already!

 

What´s everyone´s Halloween plans? I got a little update on that from Kate- I want pictures of your cat costume and eye makeup! You´re welcome to check out that makeup kit I´ve got at home somewhere from my class. You should be able to find some fun stuff in there :) -just make sure to clean the brushes with baby soap after your done so they don´t get nasty, haha ;) And it sounds like Brad´s killin´it with tennis! Keep that up, little bro. And I want pics of that too ;)

 

Dad, that´s an awesome idea about getting the ward to read Preach My Gospel. Holy cow. If all of our 15 million members would read that book, the church would double in membership in no time!! And Mom, I love how perceptive you are with your Miamaids. I know they´ll love ya in no time if they don`t already! Hna Diezi always says I have the cutest, most friendly-looking parents she´s ever seen, haha. Everyone says I have a really cool family from what they can tell in the pictures I´ve got. :) :)

 

We are finally enjoying a little bit of the fruits of last transfer´s constant finding efforts! We got 6 new investigators this week!!

First off, there´s F*****a. Her first lesson was probably the most powerful, spiritually directed lesson we´ve ever had. She is SO prepared, just eating everything up. She has two little kids that keep asking her which one their church is, and they always ask her questions about what they´re learning in their Catholic school. They´re only 5 and 2 years old!! She told us that her 5-year-old won´t eat apples anymore after what he learned in school about Adam and Eve, hahaha. I can´t wait to keep teaching her. She introduced us to her kids as "friends of Jesus" and we´re working on teaching them "I Am a Child of God."

 

Remember how I told you what Sister Wixom told us in the MTC about loving the kids we teach for her? Definitely hasn´t taken any effort! They´re so innocent and full of faith, there´s no way not to love them. We´ve been off-and-on teaching a woman named M*****a, and her kids have an amazing amount of faith. The first time we visited, her 8-yr-old nephew sat and listened for a bit, and then ran out of the room, found a Bible, and came back all excited to show us that he has a Bible, haha. The next time we visited, her 5-yr-old turned to his 2-yr-old cousin and said, "Do you know them? They´re people from Jesus." :D

 

Anyway, we also had a first lesson with a 24-yr-old girl named P***a, who says she mostly believes in the Buddhist religion. But holy cow, she was super open during the lesson. As we were ending, she told us that, looking back, when we contacted her in the street, she couldn´t believe she stopped and listened to us. She said she never would have normally talked to anyone that asked her if she believed in God. She also said that when she answered her phone and said she´d meet with us, she kept asking herself, "what am I doing?" She told us that now she knows why she felt that she needed to do those things, and she´s excited to learn more :)

 

We also noticed a big change in F**** this last time that we taught him. The first time, he interrupted a lot and kept asking questions and touching us on the shoulder as he talked. This time, he was quiet for almost the entire lesson, and he just sat there and listened. He was really taking everything we said very seriously. We had a Noche de Hogar (FHE) the other night at President Florin´s house and brought him to watch the Prophet of the Restoration video. So awesome :D Afterwards, he told us that he needs time to meditate a bit. I know that he knows it´s true, and he knows how much of a change he needs to make in his life. He needs prayers for sure!

 

Of course we´re still working on finding, though our efforts often seem to be in vain. The other day, we tackled a fifteen story building, knocked all 60 doors, and didn´t find a single interested person! But we´re feeling very blessed. As this new transfer is starting, Hna Diezi and I are feeling a renewed focus. Plus, we´re beginning to understand each other with our personality/ culture differences a bit better, haha. :) It´s been neat to see how, in our last few lessons, we´ve each said exactly what was on the mind of the other person. Now we´ve just got to work on ALWAYS being that in sync!

 

We´re still learning a TON, too. This week, I got really deep into the scriptures, and found a lot of answers to a lot of questions. I really feel like there´s no room for doubt as a missionary, because the Lord needs us to testify and promise blessings with power. With that in mind, I´ve studied with the expectation of receiving answers, and, without fail, I´ve gotten them!

 

For example, I was thinking about how exactly it works with investigators that repent and then are baptized. I didn´t really understand it. We tell investigators that they´re cleansed from sins when they´re baptized, but they have to repent and everything first. (Ok, probably everyone else understands this already, but I didn´t! Haha) I realized that investigators can´t fully take advantage of the Atonement without the ordinance of baptism. Sin is like a jacket, and unbuttoning the jacket is like repentence. Taking the jacket off is baptism. If you just repent, and aren´t baptized, the Lord can´t pardon your sins. It´s like unbuttoning the jacket, and not taking it off. If you´re just baptized without repenting, it´s like trying to take off the jacket without first unbuttoning the buttons! But by helping investigators repent first, they "unbutton their jackets," and then, at baptism, the "jacket is taken off" and the Lord accepts their repentance. That´s why people feel a weight lifted when they are baptized, and that´s why it´s so important!

 

I also thought a lot this week about progression and how that all works. Before coming on my mission, I understood that I´d have to work to become a missionary, but I still had the perception that I´d put on my chappa (nametag) and BAM, be a missionary-minded missionary. Ha, nope. I was still me. I still am me! But I´m in the process of becoming the missionary the Lord wants/ knows I can become. 

 

I´ve also had that same misperception about the process of becoming like God one day. Like becoming like God will be a sudden gift, y´know? Like, hey, good job with mortality, here´s Godhood! But in reality, becoming like God will be a process. I won´t be more like God right after I die than I was right beforehand (other than the fact that I´ll have a remembrance of the premortal existence and all that good stuff). I need to try to be as much like Him in this life as I can. It´s why it says in D&C 130:19 that if we learn more in this life, we´ll have an advantage in the next. The perfect knowledge, love, understanding, etc of Heavenly Father will come through progression, continuing after this life! Mortality is just the first test to see if we´ll be worthy to enter the Celestial Kingdom to continue to progress to Godhood. Anything and everything God does/ puts us through is to help us along in this process. His work and glory really is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

 

...I hope that made sense. It was kinda one of those "aha moments" for me this week :)

 

And today, we had an activity with a bunch of other missionaries in the zone in Oviedo. We went on a surprisingly difficult hike up a huge mountain up to a big ole statue of Jesus Christ! It was so cool! Remember how the Orlando Bloom character saw a statue like that in the movie Elizabethtown during his roadtrip? Haha, that´s what it felt like to me :)  It was fun just goofing off a little bit and enjoying the incredible scenary. We just got back from that, so I didn´t have time to crop photos. You´re welcome to touch them up if you´d like!

 

The new missionaries in our district are super awesome. We´ve got Elder Alhovouri and Hermana Cancado, and Elder A is from Finland, and was in the MTC with Jace! Hna C is from Washington state with parents from Brazil. We´ve had a lot of fun with them already, and they´re really hard workers.

 

The Hermanas sang in sacrament yesterday, the Spanish version of "If You Could Hie to Kolob," which they don´t have in their hymnbooks here, so the members liked that a lot. We did a 3-part harmony :) Oh, and since Hna King´s gone, I had to play the piano in sacrament meeting! Aah! Hna Diezi and I both know a couple of hymns, so we switched off, but we´re going to have to learn some more asap, haha.

 

Wow, time went fast, I gotta get to sending some pics.

 

I love you all so, so much! I hope you have a great week!! I have more to tell you all, but P-day time´s almost up, so I´ll try to send some letters next week.

 

Love you, love you, love you!

 

-Hermana Grover

 

Woohoo! Still a couple of minutes left :D

 

So, we taught a lot of Restoration lessons this week with our new investigators. The adversary has a lot of fun getting creative on how to interrupt whenever we start talking about the first vision, haha. Want to hear a few? It ALWAYS happens right as we say "And in Joseph Smith´s own words..."

 

-M*****a´s niece ran over and asked to have her help her take her jacket off

-F**** straight up stood up and left to get a cigarette, haha

-We were teaching another young girl and a super obnoxious lawn-mower started up

-Teaching this same girl, trying again, and she said, "Are you two hungry? I´m hungry. I´ll go make some food." And she went into the kitchen.

 

It´s ridiculous! Haha. But it just adds to my testimony that it really is the truth. There wouldn´t be so much opposition if it wasn´t!

 

Last thing- I´ve still been studying about the nature of the Godhead, and one thing I realized is that it totally makes sense to think that God is a spirit if you think that Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and God are all the same being. When you read the Old Testament, it talks about Jehovah, the God of Israel, whom we know is Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, Christ hadn´t yet been born and received a body, so He was only a spirit. So then, when people who believe that Jehovah is this trinity, Godhead being, He´s described as a spirit, it makes sense to them. Crazy, huh?

 

Ok, now time´s up. But I love you tons!

 

Thanks for the letters and the love :) I got those papers with Brad and Kate´s random drawings the other day, haha, loved those. And the talk and recipes from Mom. Those letters mean a lot!! Keep doing cool stuff and telling me about it! :D

 

Hna Grover

 

Email 13 - A Recipe for Miracles

 

Outside the chapel

 

 

 

 

Chinese food! I ate a ton of that sushi, and while eating like, the fifth one, a little tentacle fell out, haha. So I ate a lot of something with tentacles that day. Super tasty :)

 

 

The members are so excited about missionary work, they´ve started wearing chapas that past missionaries have given them during activities in the chapel, haha. (There are only two members in the branch that have served missions, and they´re married to each other! They´re super cool. We feel the most at home in their piso than in any other place here. I´ll get a pic of them soon. Oh! That´s the same couple we stopped by during my first week here, when I felt the spirit all strong and was able to understand Spanish, haha)

That other pic was before a baptism of the Aviles Elders

 

Our eating appointment with paella. There wasn´t a man in the house, so the Elders had to eat like that, haha. BTW- that stuff that looks like beer (I know, sketchy, right?) has absolutely no alchol. It´s like the sparkling cider we have at home. :)

 

A visit to the hospital (We didn´t even plan with all those members to be there at the same time, we all just ended up there after church. How cool is that??)

 

 

 Super delish pastries this morning.

Hey family!

Your emails were so fun today, haha. I was enjoying them and forgot for a second that I need to hurry up and respond :) I love you guys so much.
 

We had some tough days this week, but some really cool things happened too (should I just stop starting every email with that? Hahaha, I think you know by now that this is how every week goes...).
 

For one thing, I discovered that I LOVE teaching Enligsh! (Ok, I would go back and correct that mistake, but that´s just too ironic, haha) Like, I seriously love it a lot. A lot a lot. It´s something I can actually do, and it´s something in which I can really measure my success right then and there, because you can see the person you´re teaching progress in the moment. I love it. Did I say that yet? ;) We helped one of the Elder´s investigators prep for an interview she was going to have in English (turned out she had no idea how to work interviews either, so I tried my best to remember what Dad taught me about that), and we helped the other Hermanas´ new convert, F*****, prep for a test he had this week for the military. The best was helping these two teenage girls with their pronunciation the other night. I´m starting to feel super strongly that I need to study to become a high school teacher. I don´t know if that idea will stick around, but I´m feeling great about it right now. :D
 

Oh, and we had some incredible authentic Spanish food this week. I had my first paella yesterday! SO GOOD. It had shrimp, clams, chicken, another kinda clam, and then, if you looked really closely, baby octopus! Haha. We also had that potato torilla thing again, empeñadas, and orange slices covered in cinammon and sugar (I dare you to try it. It´s stupendous). And it´s Gijón missionary tradition to gourge at a Chinese buffet once every transfer, so of course we had to do that (I got a littly trunky when some Black Keys music started playing at the restaraunt, haha)
 

Hm. Sorry to be writing about kinda boring stuff. But here´s something fun: We´re teaching homeless people! Haha. The Elders in Aviles met and baptized an incredible woman, M***, in three weeks last month, and now she´s here in Gijón looking for a piso. She spends her time marking scriptures and then sharing them with all of her homeless buddies. (she marks scriptures that she has questions about in red, ones she likes in blue, and then ones she feels prompted to share in green) Hermana Diezi and I visited her last week in a big park, and some of her buddies walked by and she told one of them to come listen. His name´s F****, he´s an inactive Evangelist, and he knows a lot about religions, and he´s super cool. Imagine Sirius Black from Harry Potter as a homeless, talkative, wise old Spaniard and you´ve got F****! Hermana Diezi and I have taught him a few times and we don´t know how well he´ll progress, but it´s fascinating teaching him and talking to their buddies.
 

One thing that´s actually really hard about being a missionary is not being able to help the needy people you see on the streets. We aren´t supposed to give them money, but it feels TERRIBLE walking past them without helping, especially with the chapa (name tag). It´s hard trying to contact someone that just saw you walk past a homeless person without helping them. Ugh. I think that´s one of the reasons I feel so awesome and uplifted when I´m teaching M*** and her friends. Love it. (And we´re safe, don´t worry. We´ve prayed to know if it´s okay, and not only are we in a safe area, in a big open park, but we feel the spirit really strongly when we´re with them. Just in case you´re worried, haha)
 

We´re having a tough time with our investigators. We haven´t been able to meet with T*** at all- he´s "always busy," that woman, M*****, has moved to Oviedo, M**** pretended to have moved and then we saw her running away from us in the street the other day, and L**** and her friend texted us yesterday basically saying "thanks, but no thanks." AAH! But we´re working on it. We just made a goal as a district for each companionship to have 3 people found, taught and baptized this transfer. It feels pretty far-fetched, but Hermana Fuller was studying in her scriptures and discovered a "recipe for miracles" that we´re going to work on: desire, prayer, faith, action = miracles. Sounds simple, but we´re really going to try to focus on it, because acheiving this goal would definitely be a miracle!
 

It helps that the members are really starting to get on board with us. I have never heard any of them talk about member missionary work without us bringing it up and pushing them to do it, but yesterday, almost all of the testimonies mentioned their desire to work with us and share the gospel!!! My cheeks hurt from beaming at the members by the end of the meeting, haha. I´m so stoked. 
 

And, holy cow, there´s a thirteen year old kid in the ward that is an awesome example to everyone here. He kept asking us for Book of Mormons, and I asked him if he really was giving them all away. He proudly told me that he´d given away 7 copies in the last 20 days, and their family had given away all five of the pass-along cards we´d given them, and wanted more asap. I´m so proud of that kid!! We´ve decided to try to place more Book of Mormons this transfer to keep up, haha.
 

Oh yeah, and this week is transfer week! This morning we sent off two from our tiny, tight-knit district. Unfortunately for us, Hermana King was sent down to Madrid to white-wash and train! The members were devastated because she´s been here for almost six months- her entire mission so far. We also sent Elder De Avila to another area in our zone to train. I´m stoked for them both, but we miss them! Hermana Fuller´s with us right now, and we´ll pick up her new comp in a couple hours :)
 

Teaching here can be pretty hard. We get hard questions a lot, and even more often, we just get people saying "no, that´s not right. It´s like this." ESPECIALLY about the Godhead. I´ve been studying that a lot. The best answer I´ve found was actually in the Ensign from the April General Conference. I forgot to write down who it was that gave the talk, but it was about the unity of the Father and the Son. He talked about how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are mentioned so often as being "one" in the scriptures because they are one in power and purpose. He said that they desire for us to be worthy to enjoy that same "oneness" with them. I don´t believe that it´s mentioned in the scriptures so much to confuse people about the nature of the Godhead, but rather to help us see how desireable it is to have our will conform to theirs, and to be one, with them, in power and purpose. Plus, it´s impossible to really understand the Atonement without understanding that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three distinct beings. And to understand the Plan of Salvation, it´s super important to realize that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have glorified, perfected bodies. It´s really difficult trying to help people understand this truth I´ve always taken for granted, but I know it´ll work if I continue to study it and have the spirit with me!
 

It´s also important to realize that the best way to answer questions can be very different from what you´d expect. For one thing, if you look in the scriptures, any time a missionary (Alma/ Amulek, sons of Mosiah) is asked a question, they bring it down to very basic doctrine first, and then bring it back up. I feel lame for not writing down the references to send to you all, but I promise it´s all there! We need to help people have faith in the basics of God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Atonement before we´re going to get anywhere. And trust me, we´ve tried answering hard questions directly, and it never works! Plus, I had an MTC teacher that pointed out that Heavenly Father has all the answers to any questions we could ever have ever. But he doesn´t just hand them to us, because we need to find answers on our own to learn and grow. We´re trying now to help investigators know how to use the scriptures and the church websites to find answers, because it´s so much more powerful when they discover them for themselves.
 

Anyhoo. I love you guys tons, and I miss ya lots. I´m so, so grateful for the mail that seems to find it´s way here in the moments I need it most!
 

Jay´s baptism sounds like it was a super powerful experience. I´m glad to hear that the ward´s doing well, and I can´t wait to hear about what those 25 people do with their new callings! 
 

Kate- that camp sounds way fun, even if your "grand plans" didn´t work out so great, hahaha. I´m glad you´re enjoying the Percy Jackson book, too! :) And yes please! I´d love a bracelet! I think I may have misplaced my one from Thailand :( so one to take its place would be stupendous!
 

Brad- Haha, yes, I´ve heard of Slenderman. Connor told me about how the guys in his ward would all get together and turn out the lights in their dorm and scare themselves silly. I´ve definitely never been able to handle the scary stuff!
 

And yeah, I often find myself looking at things happening as how I´d tell you all about them, too. Super fun! The key is then remembering them during this short hour and a half... 
 

Thank you for the love and the prayers :D
 

´Til next time!

Love,

Hermana Grover
 

PS- oh my goodness, today Hermana Fuller found a thrift shop. We just spent an hour of P-Day playing around in there and becoming buddies with the shop owner. It was so fun!! I got some fun pics, I´ll send a couple :)

Email 12 - "I feel super close to you all while I´m out working."

 Our ritualistic Dominos visit after the zone meeting :)

 A lovely shot that Hna Fuller captured of our post-Santi´s-house coma

 The traditional Swiss dish that Hna Diezi made for us :D



 

Loving this beautiful place :)

That´s all for this week!  Once again, love you to pieces

-Hna Grover

Hey family!

Ok, I don´t know if I´m just dramatically more in-tune as a missionary (hopefully, right? haha), or if General Conference has just never been quite this awesome before, but HOLY COW I got so much out of it!!! Every single talk was so inspiring!

To answer your questions about how we watched it, we got to see one session on Saturday night, and then we watched the Relief Society broadcast the next morning, followed by two more sessions. If not for our missionary curfew, we also would have stayed at the capilla for the session starting at 10pm that night. So we still haven´t seen the Sunday afternoon session. But still, 3 General Conference sessions in a row made for a pretty stellar day. And we had a miracle! FIVE investigators came to watch a session! We´ve only ever had one investigator at church, so that was super awesome. In each session, the messages were perfect for whichever investigator we had there. (Oh, and we were able to watch it all in English. I wanted so badly to hug Hermano Carmelo when he told me that he set up a room for us with the session in our language, haha. It was kinda funny just sending our investigators off into the session with a member, and then going into a different room, praying that they were feeling the spirit and responding well.)

And I loved that I got to see Mads in the choir during the RS session!! The members all laughed when I rewound the tape after the session was over to grab a photo. The choir director at the MTC had told the Sisters that we needed to really encourage all of the Sisters to participate in choir, because they were going to need a lot of them for the "something special" happening in October. I can´t believe I wasn´t able to guess what that was at the time, haha.

I´ve also been studying the conference talks from April a TON. I read a couple talks from the Ensign at the beginning of almost every personal study, and with a prayer that I´ll find the things that I need, and that the investigators and members need, the spirit works miracles. We´ve used so many of those talks in our lessons (especially with new/ inactive members). The words of the leaders of the church are so powerful! And Mom, I love that talk you sent from President Eyring. Especially when he said "Heavenly Father and the Savior want you to be fitted to be with Them to live in families forever. Only those washed perfectly clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ can be there." How intense is that?? I mean, when we really understand that, it makes every trial bearable and the need to share the Gospel that much more intense. 

Also, in that Ensign that I´ve got, President Monson said, "A mission is a family affair. Though the expanse of continents or oceans may seperate, hearts are as one." :)

Anyway (this is going to be a super long email, haha), this week we had intercambios! (exchanges) I was with Hermana King for a couple of days, and it was really fun to change things up a bit. We´re both really similar, and it was fun to see that we both have the same very strong opinions about a lot of things. I learned a lot from her :)  And, haha, we also discovered, as we talked about our BYU days while getting ready for bed, that we´ve both kissed a boy on the same doorstep, hahaha. (She lived in Hinckley Hall the year before I did). Fun stuff. Also, did I tell you that she and J-Bob were in the MTC at the same time? :)

Hermana Diezi learned a lot from her intercambios too, and we´ve been applying it this week. The Hermana she was with is up in Oviedo, and though she knows a lot of Spanish, she struggles with the accent, so most of the people she talks to stop her and tell her that they don´t speak English (even though she´s speaking Spanish). And yet she still talks to EVERYONE. She doesn´t hold back at all, and Hna Diezi said she has a way of getting people to just stop and listen. The spirit works through her and connects to people, even though they don´t understand a word. While they were together, this Hermana contacted two girls about our age, that Hna Diezi later told me were girls that we probably wouldn´t have approached. They both accepted to be taught, and the next day, Hna Diezi and I had an incredible lesson with them!

One of the girls, L****, told us that on the day that they contacted her, she had the worst day of her life. She said that she felt horrible, and she just said, "God, if you´re there, show me." And then she was contacted by the missionaries!! They have a TON of super hard questions (they like to throw complicated news stories at us and ask why God lets them happen, why God allows people to be born with disabilities, etc. It´s pretty challenging!), but we see so, so much potential in both of them. I´m stoked to keep teaching them.

Anyway, we learned that we really just need to talk to absolutely everyone. Sounds simple enough, right? But we tend to pick and choose who we think is going to accept our message. We just had a powerful example of exactly why we can´t afford to do that (Alma 16:14-16). We need to keep finding people like L****!

In our zone meeting that we had this week, our zone leader told us that we also need to be thinking of the Atonement while we contact. I´ve thought a lot about that since then, and Hna Diezi and I are really trying to put that in practice. When we´re thinking of the Savior, and how these people really and truly can´t enter the presence of Heavenly Father (like what Pres Eyring said) without our message, it helps me realize that, despite what they may think, we really aren´t just inconveniently soliciting them, but inviting them to have the opportunity to be cleansed from all the bad things of this world, and to live in perfect happiness with their families in the presence of Christ and our Heavenly Father. 

Another Elder pointed out that we could just stop them and say, "hey, we want you to join our church. And then we want 10% of your income for the rest of your life." Haha, but I don´t think that´d work quite as well. (Reminds me of President Uchtdorf´s awesome talk in the Saturday morning session, haha)

We´re still working hard as we try to come up with ways to get the members together. Because it was only us 4 Hermanas (with one other hilarious Sister from the ward that knows a little English) in the room watching Conference in English, we cheered everytime they said something about members and missionary work, haha. It was so exciting!!! We´re also working on getting everyone to the chapel to watch the Work of Salvation broadcast this weekend, and we´re setting up a talent night to get members to bring their friends.

 

We´re also feeling really, really good about our relationship now with the branch president. We taught T*** in his house the other day, and he came home right as we were finishing up, and then we were able to tell him about the baptismal date we had just set (October 25th!!), and about some things going on in the branch. He also keeps running into us on the street as we´re contacting someone. I´m just really glad that he´s seeing us in action and finally knows that he can trust us!

 

Although some members might just love us a little TOO much ;) We ate at Santi´s house this week (Have I told you about him? Crazy supportive, old, Spanish man. He loves to give the Hermanas chocolate bars, and he has a fake right arm- always shake with the LEFT hand, haha) and I have never felt so horribly full in all my life. I thought I was going to explode! We waddled to the other Hermana´s piso for a few minutes after the eating appointment and I collapsed on the floor and couldn´t get back up, haha. But then medio dia ended and we had to go out to work. We felt better after a few minutes... because there are still miracles in our day, haha.

 

I feel super close to you all while I´m out working. I can´t even put into words how grateful I am to have been raised in the Gospel and in the family we have. The two answers we always get to "are you a person that believes in God?" on the street are ALWAYS "Nope. Never have, never will," or, "Yes, very much. But in my own manner. Now go away," and I´m so glad that I grew up in such a way that, if I were asked that question, I could say, "Yes, He is everything to me, and I know He loves me. I know how to be able to live with Him again, and I know that He will help me, every step of the way."

 

A year and a half is nothin´ compared to eternity, and I´m grateful that we can be together for all that time!

 

(I´m also super grateful for the love that comes in the mailbox!! I got so many letters this week, it was fantastic! 7 from home in one day! Thank you to the Alexanders as well, for the sweet letter from their family! And to Uncle Scott for the letter and the disc. I love those piano guys songs! And Katie, your drawing is super impressive! Keep that up!!)

Wow, that was super long, haha. But I love you all so, so much, and I really hope you all are doing well, and that you all got as much of a boost from conference as I did! I would write some of the things that I loved down, but there were too many things, haha. Just read/ listen to them ALL if anyone that reads this haven´t yet!

Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Grover

 

P.S.  To Dad:

That Young Women Presidency sounds incredible! And also very similar to when I was in Beehives :)

 

I´m so excited for Jay!!!! Give him a hug for me, too. Tell him that now all he needs to do is serve a mission! ;)

I love you and miss you! So glad to hear things are going so well back home. And thank YOU for the pictures! I love seeing them!!

 

Love,

Hna Grover

PS - "I think you´re terrific!" ;)

Email 11 - "That´s missionary life. And I´m loving it :D "

 

"This place is so pretty :)"

 

 

 

 

"Last P-day, in the Centre :)"

 

"We got frozen yogurt that actually tastes like real yogurt, haha. Not really a fan..."

 

 

"Finally got around to getting to the beach!"

 

"Kate, check out what I found ;)"

 

 

"Everyone says we look like Testigos... we´re kinda realizing that it´s unfortunately true, haha."

 

 

 

 

"Here´s some lovely artwork of a member in her piso (she wouldn´t let me get a pic with her in it)..."

 

 

 

"...and then the lovely artwork in our piso :D"

 

 

 

"Another fun one with the "chappa" (nametag)"



"Teaching the members how to play "ninja" after a branch FHE :)"

 



 

 "I´m feeling the love from home!!"

Holy cow, sounds like a lot´s happening back home!! Thanks so much for the updates. I´ll read them more in depth later today :) I loved the pictures from Mike and Dad!

That recording device idea sounds great!! I´ll look forward to sending you guys some recordings of life in Spain :)
 

Also... HOLY LOVE FROM HOME! Oh my goodness! I got a letter from Mom right after doing emails last week, and three more on Thursday. I also got a glorious package on Tuesday!! That was stupendous. The love is very much needed and appreciated :D  (Those church magazines are perfect, by the way. I´ve used them everyday since getting them. I also just found out that we won´t have a chance to watch the last session of General Conference, or the Relief Society broadcast. If you could maybe send me the Ensign with those when that comes out, that would be so great!!)
 

I feel bad because I didn´t have time to write letters last week, and I probably won´t be able to write any today because we´re starting intercambios (exchanges) tonight and we need to clean up and pack up for that. I´m going to be with Hermana King until Wednesday morning :) I´ll write soon, though!
 

We had some very typical missionary experiences this week. We were supposed to spend an entire day contacting in La Cambocha- because we reeeally need to find new investigators, but we quickly realized that we weren´t going to get very far in that area, haha, so we just stayed for an hour. Here´s how that hour went:

 

-We had a big dog "attack" us (he was actually pretty friendly and cute... just a little strong and big, haha)

-We had people pretend they weren´t home

-We had a lady get sassy with us because she thought we were testigos (Jehovah´s Witnesses)

-We had some doors slammed

-We were laughed at by some teenagers

-We felt the Spirit nudge us over to a building, then to a door, where we ended up giving a lesson to a SUPER sweet Colombian woman and her two kids. We´re going back this week to teach her :)
 

Yep. That´s missionary life. And I´m loving it :D 
 

As for our investigators, we lost touch with T***. It was AWFUL. We couldn´t stop thinking about what might be going on and why he wasn´t answering the phone or our texts, or why he was "never home." We also had gotten a call from M*****, the Catholic woman that we found in the streets and had an awesome first lesson with, and she told us that she was moving to Olviedo, so we couldn´t teach her anymore (we passed on the reference, though). And that SAME DAY, we were giving E******** one last shot, and she "wasn´t home." We contacted her neighbor, and as we were standing there, she and her boyfriend ran out the door and down the stairs. It was tough. 

 

I tried calling T*** one more time at the end of the day, and he picked up the phone!! He told me that he´d been lost, and he wanted to meet with us again as soon as he could. I´m super stoked. He´s totally going to get baptized (as long as he comes to church... but we´ve got a pretty good plan for that, so I´m feeling good).
 

M****´s still doing well. It´s tricky to meet with her because she works all day and has classes until late at night, but it was her birthday on Saturday, so we stopped by with some chocolate and a copy of the Relief Society theme because she´d liked it so much when we did a chapel tour with her. I´m excited to keep teaching her. She´s a very sweet girl, and she already made a connection with Katy, one of the Young Single Adults that helps us out like none other.
 

It was definitely a week of miracles amid tough situations. I´m pretty sure I can expect that for the rest of the mission, haha. As long as we´re doing what we´re supposed to, little things work out perfectly. People still have their agency, and it´s really hard sometimes to accept that, but Heavenly Father will always give us enough (sometimes just barely enough, haha) to keep us going. 

 

Oh, but here´s a super awesome miracle: The branch is slowly but surely "Catching the Wave," as Elder Nelson puts it. We´ve been struggling with members not knowing what their callings mean, members not having any idea what the missionaries do or that they can help/ they have a responsibility to help with it, one of the leaders discouraging members from helping the missionaries because he thought it wasn´t their place, members being judgemental of one another, people showing up really late to meetings/ not showing up at all, and other little things. Hermana Diezi and I were thinking about it A LOT. Especially as we were watching the missionary training videos that we watch every few days and as I was thinking about our ward back home.

 

´Turns out the other Hermanas were thinking the exact same thing. So we had a meeting with the Branch Presidency, the Ward Mission Leader, and the 6 of us missionaries. It was AWESOME. Everyone had been feeling that something was missing, and now we´re working on how to get things going. I was so impressed and relieved to have everyone feeling so supportive and ready to work after that meeting. We´re going to stick to our Ward Mission Leader, Edgar, and the Branch Presidency as we try to get the branch pumped about the Work of Salvation here in Gijón. 

I´ll keep you all posted on how that goes :D
 

I´m starting to feel a bit more comfortable with my Spanish. In that meeting with the ward leaders the other day, I was able to keep up with everyone and put my two cents in every now and then, without anyone asking for a translation from my comp, haha. Like Mike said it was for him, it definitely depends on how in the zone I am and how in tune I am with the spirit. 
 

I also can´t believe how much I´m changing/ how much more I need to change. I think I mentioned this in my last email, but good gravy there´s quite a bit. The love of Heavenly Father is so real, and so strong, though, that even when my weaknesses are being exposed and I´m having a tough time, I know I can turn to Him and look for what to do. And that thing to do is ALWAYS turning outward and not focusing on myself. I´m trying to do the work of the Savior, and the only way for it to be acceptable to Him is if I do it in His way. I love the people here, and I can feel it getting easier when I´m focusing on my purpose, the Savior, and everyone except myself. I´m so grateful for a patient trainer and a patient Heavenly Father as I´m trying to learn how to do it!
 

Of course I miss you all, and I love you all so, so much. Thanks for the love and prayers! The work in Gijón is moving slowly at the moment, but that won´t last long!!
 

Hurrah for Israel! ;)
 

Love,
 

Hermana Grover