Email 19 - Frank is Baptized! And a New Companion!

 

"Frank's Baptism"

 

 

 "Visiting Nancy"

 

"Saying goodbye at the train station with Katy and Melissa"

Hey family!

We´re about to go pick up my new companion, Hermana Zitting (the only thing I know is that she´s from the States), so I don´t have time to read your emails- but I´ll print them and read them later! (Hopefully Hna Zitting and I will be able to return to finish up. I doubt she´s done her internet time yet.)

Thanks for the Thanksgiving banner/sign! Hna Diezi and I have been filling it up, and I´m going to have the YSA here write on it when we have our Thanksgiving dinner this week. :D Also, I´m super grateful for the Conference talks. I was so excited to see that in there! And the Plan of Salvation pictures are stupendous. Aida sent me a sweet package as well, give her a big hug for me when you see her!

Oh, and I skimmed through your emails, and yeah, I´ve listened to all of the recordings. Multiple times, haha. I love it! I´ve been with the other Hnas all day, and I don´t have the cord to send this week´s recordings, but if I come back with Hna Zitting, I´ll send them!

Alright, now for the good stuff.

Frank was baptized this Friday! His baptism was nothing less than a miracle. As we were meeting with him the day before, we were prompted to have him talk with the family history specialists about the temple with us. I was a little nervous about talking about it before baptism, but after showing him photos of temples and talking a bit about their purpose, he told me it confirmed his decision to be baptized!

Two hours before his baptism, Frank called us and said "we need to talk." Naturally, Hna Diezi and I were freaking out about what could have happened. We met up and he told us that he hasn´t had any work for 4 months, and a lady offered him a job, but she could ONLY meet on that day, at the exact time of his baptism, in a city 30 minutes away.

After talking for a while about what we could do, Hna Diezi asked how much faith he had. He said, "muchisimo." She then promised him that if he put the Lord first and was baptized instead of taking the job, he would find something better.  And he was baptized two hours later :D 

He was sad to see Hna Diezi go, but much less so than many of the members. It´s very apparent with him that he´s truly began the conversion process, and he genuinely has a testimony of the truth.

Hna Diezi left this morning to Madrid to be companions with... (dramatic pause)... Hna Adair!!! Crazy.  (editor's note:  Hna. Adair was Chrissy's companion in the Missionary Training Center in Provo!)

I´m excited to meet my new companion. I hope she´s ready to work, haha, because we´ve got lots to do here in Gijón.

As for our other investigators, E---n came to Frank´s baptism and to church the next day! He´s progressing really well, and committed to living the Word of Wisdom in our last lesson. He told the Elders when his baptismal date was, and told the other Hnas that he thinks being an Elder would be really cool. :)

We were finally able to meet with Fa---la again, and she´s telling her friends that she´s a Mormon! She wants us to meet with a few of her friends that are "losing their faith," because she always feels good when she´s with us. 

It´s been so great seeing how the Lord opens opportunities for us when we´re really set on working hard all day. It can be easy sometimes to slack off a bit during the day, like walking slower between appointments just to take up time, etc. But after a day of that, I just feel terrible because we´ve wasted the Lord´s time.

And so, one day this week, I was just praying all day that we´d be able to use all of our time exactly how the Lord would want us to. 

And of course, that was the day when a bunch of our lessons fell through. We had 40 minutes without anything, and I was super thirsty and Hna Diezi needed a bathroom, but we knew we needed to do something so we set out to contact. 

 

About two minutes later, a girl grabs my shoulder, apologizes profusely for never being able to meet, and insists that we stop in a cafe for a bit so she can buy us a drink and we can talk. ´Turns out she was a street contact from about a month ago. It was a little thing, but it was a miracle! Heavenly Father knew our desire to work hard that day, and he provided the way :)

 

Ok, we actually have to run to the train station now. I have more to say and photos to send, so I´ll hopefully be coming back in a minute!

 

Love you guys tons!!!

 

-Hna Grover

 

I´m back! Hna Zitting seems super awesome. She´s 22, from Tennessee, has 4 months left in the mission, and studied Speech Therapy at BYU. I think we´re going to get along super well :)

 

Kate- good luck with your new homeschool group! Keep me updated on that :) and I would love to see more of your drawings!

 

Dad- I´ve left that camera on auto the entire time, haha :) I love it! I´ve been keeping it safe with that little Pelican case Aunt Sue gave me a million years ago. I´m glad to hear that tithing settlement is such an uplifting experience. It´s been really neat seeing a transformation in the branch president here in the way he handles things. He´s a much more patient, humble person than when I first met him. I´m so grateful that we have callings in this church!

 

Mom- Thanks for the article and for sharing Sheila´s story! That´s awesome! I would have loved to have you in the kitchen for making paella as well! I took notes, I´ll send them to you next week :)

 

Mike- sounds like the band is doing great! Let me know how things go with Alicia :)

 

Anyway...

 

I´ve been studying a lot this week about the potentials we have and the labels we give ourselves. Especially as missionaries, we often make the huge mistake of defining ourselves by our actions. If I don´t make an effort to contact anyone on my way to an appointment, it´s easy to think, "welp, I´m a failure at contacting. I´m not a missionary who works hard." Or if I don´t understand something that someone says at church, it´s easy to think, "ha, I guess I don´t understand this language after all. I´m not a missionary that can speak Spanish." (Kinda like what it talks about in that ´Drops of Awesome´ blogpost, y´know?)

 

Funny thing is that we (or at least I) tend to feel justified in our actions with these definitions. But when you consider the purpose of life and the enabling power of the Atonement, it´s SO clear that this kind of thinking isn´t of God. 

 

We aren´t supposed to limit our capacities by assigning constraining definitions to ourselves or others. I´m sure that´s not something Heavenly Father would approve of!

 

Our constant desire and focus should be improvement and progression. Elder Ulisses Soares says that "Upon acknowledging our dedication and perseverance, the Lord will give us that which we are not able to attain due to our imperfections and human weaknesses."

 

It´s true that there are things we alone can´t do without the Lord. Without His help, it´s true that, in those moments, I´m not a missionary who can work hard or speak the language, but if I define myself that way, it won´t change. His promise is that we´ll be able to have those attributes and capacities we need- even when our weaknesses say otherwise- IF we are dedicated, persevering, and if we trust the Lord.

 

We can´t forget that Heavenly Father´s the ONLY one with the right to put a label on us, and the one He gives us is that of His children :) Divine in nature and infinite in worth.

Kinda cheesy sounding sometimes, but it´s so true and so important!

 

I love you guys tons!  Have a great week!

 

PS- Hna Zitting and I are typing away furiously, haha, I´ll send a picture of us next week :)

 

Love you!

 

Email 18 - Baptism This Saturday!

 

 

 

"Making paella with the lovely María Bazían last Pday! :)"

 

 

 

 

"An activity in the chapel with the JAS (YSA).  In that picture, there´s Elder Castaldi, me, Elder Alhovuori, Hna Diezi, Elvin Aixa (on the recording), Carmelo, Vicki, 2 JAS from Olviedo, Edgar, Hna Hunt, Yajira, Elder Hunt, Melissa, Katy, and a friend of hers :)"

 "Playing Jenga at a Noche de Hogar"

 

 

"The day we forgot our umbrella"

 

 

"The talent night :) That´s little Daniella who I told you about."

  "Swiss food!"

"Noah and Ellie´s artwork :)"

 

 

 

"This morning, the Olviedo Elders stopped by to return something of Hna Diezi´s that they had. We showed them the beach before they left."

 

 

 

"I´m prophesying that there´ll be a temple there someday ;)"

 

And the editor let's Photoshop make it so. :)

Hiiii family!

Wow, everyone had eventful weeks! So fun to hear from you :D THANK YOU for the package! And the awesome recording device!! Holy cow that was amazing! The music is stupendous, too, and I´ll definitely make that pumpkin bread for Thanksgiving. You guys are the best.

I sent a postcard last Pday to the Brodricks, and got an awesome letter from them the next day! Haha, so the postcard won´t have anything to do with what they wrote to me. ´Looks like we were both inspired ;)

We had a very cold, wet, BUSY week. It was awesome!! I don´t know what we´re doing differently, but I´m certainly not complaining. 

Fr--- is getting baptized this Saturday!!!! It´s the perfect end for Hermana Diezi and I after two long transfers. We´re just about positive she´s heading out next week. We´ll see what´s coming next! :)

Anyway, Fr--- has really been an inspiration for the members here. We were teaching him with one lady, S----a, and she was just shocked by how easily he was able to quit smoking. S----a - "¿¿Ya dejo de fumar??" Fr--- - "Claro..." Haha.

Last night, we taught him with Carmelo and another member, Gladys. At the end of the lesson, Carmelo looked at him and told him that there was something he wanted him to give him. As if cued, Fr--- popped the earring out of his ear and handed it over. He is so ready to get baptized!

Also, randomly this week, T--i called us again! We haven´t seen him in two months! He called because his son living in the Domincan Republic with his ex fell and had to get stitches, and it freaked him out. He said he knew he´d feel better after talking to us :)

We also met with M---a again- it turns out she hadn´t "moved" after all ;) But she had a new phone and that´s why we couldn´t get in touch.

Oh, and we found M--u!!! Holy cow, thank you so much for the prayers. She´s had some really terrible things happen to her in the last couple of weeks, but she´s stuck to her guns the whole time. She just wasn´t sure how to approach us and the members without first working out in her mind what had happened. Anyway, she´s doing much better now. Fr---´s helping a lot. 

We met with the sweet family of Av----a again, and we just now saw her kids walking home from school :) We haven´t seen A-----o in two weeks but we´re hoping to meet with him today, and both of the Il----s had a lot of questions answered during our Plan of Salvation lesson and we´re feeling good about their progress!

And we put a baptismal date for El--n! He´s set for baptism on the 21st of December. If everything continues to go as well as they have this week (not only will we continue to not be able to go home for medio dia ever because we have lessons, haha) we´ll have a baptism this week, and then 5 more next month! It´s crazy.

We also prepared for and had a Talent Show on Saturday night with the ward members. It was so fun! Almost everyone participated in some way, and a couple of our investigators showed up to watch. The other missionaries and I did a goofy skit together. I got someone to take a video- I´ll see if I can find a way to send it :)

 

Some members had us over last night to eat, and they fed us legit Swiss food!! It was so, so delicious. They used something called a raclette, where they melt cheese underneath and cook meat and stuff on top. I stuffed myself silly with that goodness. I imagine Dad probably ate some of that during his mission. :)

 

We´ve been so, so busy. And as I´ve studied the war chapters in the Book of Mormon this week, I´ve learned so much about patience, not being overwhelmed, and doing everything you can and then leaving the rest to God. 

 

The story of the Stripling Warriors might just be my new favorite. Their "little force" as Helaman calls them helped so much, and these 2,000 young men were so inspiring to the rest of the armies of Moroni (Alma 56:16-17). After the success of their first battle, 60 more of their peers joined the army (Alma 57:6) :) And we´re familiar with how all of them fought valiantly, and all of them received wounds, but not one of them died. Directly after the battle, Helaman sent out to pull the wounded from among the dead. 200 of these boys had fainted from the loss of blood, but because Helaman went to rescue them immediately, not one of them were lost (Alma 57: 24-26). 

 

No matter what happened, how unprepared or overcome they felt, they never feared their enemies. The only thing they feared were the judgements of God. They had complete confidence that God had absolute power and would deliver them from their enemies, they only feared that they would be seen unworthy of this blessing (It explains, then, why Moroni freaks out so bad any time he sees even the slightest bit of iniquity among his people, haha).

 

You actually can learn a lot from the war chapters. There are amazing examples of confidence in the Lord and the rewards of righteous desires, motives, and actions. 

 

The talk Mom sent last week was, once again, completely inspired! (Truths and Lies by Jennifer Nuckols) I especially loved these two quotes:

 

"Some people may not easily give into large temptations, but if Satan can depress and immobilize those Saints through a false perception of their unworthiness or inadequacies, then they become neutralized in the fight against evil." (Sister Nuckols) 

 

And then what Elder Maxwell said:

 

"May I speak, not to the slackers in the Kingdom, but to those who carry their load and more; not to those lluled into false security, but to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short... There is a difference... between being "anxiously engaged" and being "over-anxious and thus underengaged"... We can distinguish more clearly between divine discontent and the devil´s dissonance, between dissatisfaction with self and disdain for self, We need the first and must shun the second, remembering that when conscious calls to us from the next ridge, it is not soley to scorn but also to beckon."

 

Don´t ever be immobilized in battle! :)

As it says in that "Drops of Awesome" blogpost that I love...

"Small and simple... Go forth. Be awesome."

 

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

 

-Hna Grover

 

I hope these recordings work :)

Email 17 - "Heed the Words of Christ"

 

The bus ride home from Leon.

"That drive is absolutely gorgeous. :)

(I really can´t do this scenary justice.)"

 

 

 

"After the zone meeting this week in Leon."

 

 

 

 

 "Just one of our laundry, haha :)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A fun store that had Katie written all over it ;)"

 

 

"A truck that I just had to grab a photo with, haha."

 

 

 

 

 

"Enjoying the parks around here this morning :)"

 

 

 

Hey family!

 

How´s everyone doing?? I hope you all enjoyed your week. Mom, thanks a ton for the object lessons you sent! Those are great. We´re going to use the one with the cups about the Apostasy hopefully tonight. :)

 

Thank you for letting me know about Nate. I was actually really worried. A member came up to me at church and, out of the blue, started telling me about how there´d been a huge storm in the Philippines and 5 or so Americans died. AH! Anyway, I´m glad to hear he´s doing okay!

 

THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS FOR F****! We found him!!! Finally, on Saturday, after a baptism of the other Hermanas, he answered our calls and we met up with him in the capilla (chapel). We had set up several appointments this week, and he kept not showing up. He was telling us on the phone that he was in the midst of a battle for his soul, and honestly, we were able to see it happening. Because of his potential as a strong leader in the church, it´s clear that Satan does not want the combination of him with the priesthood. So what did we do? We got him a priesthood blessing :)

 

Hermano Carmelo and the Elders gave one of the most powerful blessings I´ve ever heard, blessing him with health and protection from evil spirits. Directly after the blessing, we saw a very apparent change in his countenance, and he couldn´t stop saying how peaceful he felt. We taught him then and there about the Word of Wisdom, and challenged him to stop smoking and drinking coffee from that moment on. He agreed.

 

He came to church yesterday, too, and all of the members loved him right away (like I said before, he´s totally like Sirius Black from Harry Potter. What´s not to love? Haha). After church, Hna Diezi acted on a prompting and basically forced him to go home with the President and his family for lunch. When we called their house two hours later, he was still there playing card games with the family! We stopped by, had a lesson, and then asked what he was doing next. When he said nothing, we brought him along with us to a Noche de Hogar (FHE) with the ward mission leader! He was with members ALL day, and had 0 time alone to even be tempted to break the Word of Wisdom.  He wants to get baptized asap, so he´s got a date set for November 23rd!! I´m so, so excited for him.

 

Last night, Hna Diezi and I remembered that, last transfer, on a particularly difficult night, we´d decided that we needed to do everything we could to have Heavenly Father lead us to a strong potential priesthood holder to help this tiny branch here in Gijón. ´Looks like we´ve found him!

 

We still have not been able to find M**u, though, and F**** said he hasn´t seen her either, but he´s going to help us look.

 

This week, we weren´t able to meet with A*****o because of his work schedule, but everytime we call, he answers and tells us that he´s still reading and loving the Book of Mormon :) And it´s the same story right now with E***n, but we have an appointment to see him again tonight. We´re a little nervous about helping him seperate what he´s learning about the church with his girlfriend, but we´re going to explain to him how important that is tonight.

 

The two I****s are doing well, also. They both have no hope in their lives right now, but the AWESOME member we´re working with has made it very clear to them that "hey, you have a problem. These two girls with me have the answer. You keep listening to them." Love it!

 

And we found a family this week!!!! It´s a family of five, and we taught all of them (except for their 18-yr-old son who hid in his room...) earlier this week. The spirit was so, so strong, and I just kept thinking during the lesson, as we involved their 8-yr-old daughter, 14-yr-old son and both parents, this is how it should always be. We´re going to stop by tonight and use that object lesson I mentioned.

 

I´m glad to hear you were able to indulge in some of those stupendous chocolate croissants over at EPCOT! Those are such a weakness for me here, haha. But I´ll tell you right now, octopus is not a weakness. The first few times I ate it here, it was okay, because my system hadn´t quite decided what to think yet. Mmmm, yeah, not a fan, haha. But one of the many blessings I´ve seen as a missionary is being able to eat whatever we´re given! Including the beans and octopus stew and the African food made with fermented oil that we were fed this week by members. ¡Viva la vida misional! ;) But tonight, we´re going to an old Spaniard member´s house and she´s going to teach us how to cook paella!!

 

Anyhoo, things are going well for us here. Exact obedience is tough, but oh-so-worth-it. We have a higher law to live as missionaries, but the more obedient I am, the more I get out of my studies and the more spiritually in tune I am. It´s like the metaphor with the Liahona has become more literal for me. But that´s how it should always be, you know? In Alma 37:44, he mentions how it´s really just as easy for us to heed the words of Christ as it was for Lehi and his family to heed a compass with directions literally spelled out for them. The more obedient we are, the clearer the way. :)

 

I´ve been studying the nature of the adversary a lot this week, too. With everything going on with Frank right now, and the fact that I´m in the war chapters of the Book of Mormon right now have made that an important topic. It´s so important to understand how Satan works and what exactly he´s trying to do. But the cool thing is, while I´m studying this, I already know he´s going to end up losing this battle. We really already know which team is going to win, but I heard once that it just depends on what jersey we choose to wear.

 

Well, that´s all I´ve got for this week! Stay wonderful, folks, and keep me updated! I love you and think about you more than you can possibly know :)

 

Love,

Hna Grover

 

P.S.

 

Forgot to tell you about one other investigator we had this week, L***a. She´s been off and on investigating for a few years, and has told us she wants to be baptized now- but she clearly doesn´t understand yet why it´s important to be baptized in this church- so we´ll work on that. We had a funny moment in a lesson with her this week. She had a friend there, so we taught them both, and L***a kept trying to interrupt us to explain what she thought was our doctrine, but she kept saying things we don´t believe. Her friend would then confront us and go off on how crazy that belief is while we were trying to talk over L***a to explain that we don´t actually believe that, hahaha. It was hilarious.

 

And then I ended up using the example Mike gave about how the Godhead is like a basketball team with one name and purpose, but different people and positions. L***a´s friend had been describing the Godhead as an egg, with three distinct parts, but all in one egg. We were kind of agreeing with her, until she then reasoned that when Jesus Christ was on the earth, that meant that God was on the earth and there wasn´t a God in Heaven at that time. Ha, nope. The basketball team idea seemed to clear that up for her.

 

That´s it for this week! I love you all tons and tons and I hope things are going great. Thank you for the prayers and everything and I´ll look forward to getting that recording device soon!

 

Hna Grover

 

 

Email 16 - "The Members Here Are Super Awesome!" And Zone Conference: "It was AMAZING"

 

"Zone Conference :) With Hna Fuller"

 

 

"My sweet trainer :)"

"Our new rule for the companionship"

 

 

"The sign that I am SO tempted to wear when we contact."

(editor's note:  I think the English translation is: "We are not: Jehovah's Witnesses, or Evangelicals, or nuns.  Please:  Read the nametag!")

 

 

"Accidently matching (a lot more weird looks that day...not gonna do that again, haha)."

 

 

 



"hot chocolate after a hard day"

 

 

 

 "...and the delicious pastry place again. I have to take you all there!"

 

 

 



Hey family!

 

Sounds like it was a fun week for everybody! Love all the pictures! :D

 

Wow, I can´t believe it´s only been a week since zone conference this past Tuesday. It was AMAZING. I learned so, so much. The Assistants talked a lot about exact obedience. That´s something I´ve had pounded into me from so many sources, that excact obedience is vital to success as a missionary, and Hna Diezi and I have been doing everything we can to put that into practice. It´s interesting, though, how the adversary can make things seem okay, even when they´re clearly against mission rules. For example, during the conference, one Elder pointed out how he doesn´t feel that he´s fulfilling his purpose as a missionary when he´s so caught up in getting home on time, he misses a teaching opportunity. Another, more experienced Elder, piped up and reminded us of the first two, great commandments : 1. Love God, 2. Love others. He said that when we do anything against the rules on our missions (or against the standards/ commandments in pre/post mission life), even if it´s to help someone else, we´re mixing up the order of those commandments. By trusting in the rules and standards that we have as missionaries/ members of the church, we´re showing God that He comes first.

 

Hearing that made so many things click for me! Hna Diezi and I have always wondered how “exact” is “exact obedience.” Ha, turns out it´s pretty darn exact. Go figure, huh? I learned this week that we don´t need to question the “whys” or the “what´s going to come out of its” of the rules. We need to just be obedient.

 

Of course this doesn´t just apply to missionaries. It´s something we see in the scriptures a lot. If you think of Abraham, and his reaction to the command to sacrifice his son, we clearly see that he wasn´t caught up in the “why” of what God was asking him to do. Also, by Abinadi simply obeying God´s command to return again and continue to preach, Alma was converted (something Abinadi didn´t know was going to happen), and from his lineage came all the rest of the prophets that we have in the Book of Mormon. Crazy!

 

Just being with the President, Sister Jackson, and the other missionaries in the zone was awesome. Hna Diezi/ Fuller, Elder Foster (Zone Leader)/ Elder Alhovouri and I sang a 4-part “Brightly Beams” in the conference. It actually sounded pretty cool! I felt super pumped. And one thing that Hermana Hunt, a senior-couple missionary said in her testimony during the conference, really hit me. I´ve had in mind this image of the missionary I want to be ever since I decided I wanted to go on a mission, when I was 11, haha. I´ve grown up watching the missionaries closely because I´ve always known I wanted to be one of them! However, the adversary has a way of getting in our heads and making us feel like we can´t live up to that potential, but after listening to the talks about exact obedience, I was feeling like I really can do this, and do it how I´ve always wanted to. And then Hermana Hunt got up and said, “How hard I worked on my mission set the speed for the rest of my life.”

 

I´m not sure why that hit me so hard, but it gave me a new “bring it on” kinda attitude towards this work! …And then the next day “brought it on,” haha.

 

That was Wednesday, and it was rough. It was super cold that day, and we started the morning booked up to our eyeballs with appointments, which we were super grateful for! But I´ll admit we were a little relieved when a member canceld a Family Home Evening with us, haha. Aaand then all of our plans fell through. We were walking outside in the cold for three hours, we called absolutely every investigator/ future investigator/ member/ inactive we could think of, we tried knocking doors and just nothing was working. It was crazy! It was so hard resisting the temptation to take a couple minutes to go into a café, grab some hot chocolate and churros, and take a break. Even after all the talks about obedience the day before! We stuck to it, though, and I´ve never been so relieved for the time to finally come to go home, haha.

 

It was a tough day, but we felt super blessed for sticking to our guns and doing what we were supposed to. Heavenly Father pointed out His hand to us when we got home by having Hno Carmelo randomly call and say he was praying for us, and as we remembered the hot chocolate mixes that Mom sent a little while ago J

 

Wow, my typing skills are really being put to the test, haha. I have so much to say this week!

 

We still have not been able to find F**** or M***. We´re pretty nervous about that, but we´re going to go looking for them again today. But A****** is progressing super well!! Last night, we met with him and put a baptismal date for December 7th, and I´m super stoked. He´s reading, and thank goodness, understanding the Book of Mormon. We tried last night to get his wife on board, but she said she doesn´t have time to make changes in her life right now. I think with him as an example, she´ll come around. J

 

We got another member reference this week of a Cuban lady and her 16-yr-old daughter, both named I*****. We had asked her friend, that works in a store nearby, where her building was, and her friend went off about how the last think I***** needed at the moment was religion. “She just needs to dance, and sing, and forget all the things in her head. The things of God will just make things harder. That´s not what she needs right now.” Hahaha. Actually, the “things of God” are what she needs, and we found out that it´s what she wants right now, too! She and her daughter both agreed to be baptized when they have a testimony.

 

Have I told you about E**** yet? –I don´t think so. He´s the boyfriend of a really sweet 18-yr-old member here, and he´s AWESOME. In our first lesson, I handed him a Book of Mormon and he was like “Woah. I´ve held a lot of books before, but this one has a weight to it. I can feel power in this book,” and then in his prayer at the end, he said, “Please help me to know if this church is true- well, I already belive it is.” :D He recognizes the spirit and already has a testimony. We´re hoping to set a date for baptism with him in our lesson tonight!

 

The members here are super awesome. They´ve suddenly sprung to life in these last couple of weeks, and we´ve gotten so many references! I´m never going to underestimate the power of member-missionary work ever again. They´ve been so helpful with N****, as her husband L*** passed away (We sang a 4-part “God Be With You Til We Meet Again” at the funeral this week), and we´re going to try to put what Elder Ballard mentioned in Conference about every member having an investigator by Christmas into play. The other Hermanas have been working on a game plan for that J

 

Oh, and Mom, how did you know to send that talk from President Eyring to me? That was PERFECT. I love that talk. I remember having a lesson on it in Miamaids once, actually. Anyway, Hna Diezi and I both haven´t been keeping up with our journals. But because we´re so easily motivated by chocolate, haha, the new rule is that we can´t eat chocolate if we didn´t write the night before. ´Guess who´s keeping up with their journals now? J And I love what President Eyring said about President Faust, how “I always felt that when I grew up, I wanted to be like President Faust. There may still be time.”

 

Thanks to the Atonement, there´s always time to become what we´ve always wanted to be! This week I´ve really felt like I can be the missionary I want to be, and I know it´s possible for us to reach the potentials Heavenly Father has in mind for us. We can´t ever forget that!

 

Wow, I´m running out of time. I hope that all made sense!

 

I love and miss you guys so, so much. Keep sending me pictures, those are the best! :) :)

 

Love you tons!!

 

Hna Grover

 

PS -Mom, I thought that picture of the Sacred Grove was super funny. Do you remember how old I was when I drew that? 



Email 15 - "Everyone Needs This!!"

 

"Bracelets from Kate :D"

 

 

 

 

"We made some tasty stew the other day :D Look familiar?"

 

 

 

"So, when you go to restaurants here, it´s a bit different. There isn´t a menu, just a couple choices of whatever they´re making that day. So when they offered us spaghetti, this is what we got! Haha. Octopus spaghetti!

 

It was actually delicious, by the way. Just a bit difficult to look at, haha. ¡Viva España!"

 

 

 

 We were at that restuarant for Hna Fuller´s birthday this week :) And that´s a pic from the conference in León that we had yesterday.

Fun stuff!

Sorry I didn´t have a whole lot of pics this week. I should get some good ones today with the zone :)

Love you tons!!!

´til next week!

Hey family!!

Mom, thanks so much for sending me those shirts! It´s super nice getting to change up the uniform a bit, haha. And we´ve been listening to the cd a ton. Thank you!! Haha, glad to hear that Sister Alexander helped me out with that hug. They sent me a really sweet letter a couple weeks ago. I love that family :)

 

And Kate, I love the bracelet you sent. Super fun. Hermana Diezi always accuses me of not having enough color on, so that definitely helps ;) And the earrings are perfect. I sure love ya, m´dear!

 

Brad- so school´s kinda grinding your gears, huh? I´m proud of you for kinda staying above all the nonsense, though. That´s tough to do. It´s especially tough when you don´t have buddies to exchange exasperated looks with in class, haha, I´m with ya on that one. Don´t forget, though, that Heavenly Father´s watching everything that´s happening- I would even sometimes share a laugh with Him in my head during the day. Like, "wow, are you seeing this too?" Haha :) Good luck, bro. Stick to your guns!

 

Dad, I LOVE those pictures. Hahaha. Thanks so much for sending them!! Sounds like things are going well with the ward. Mom mentioned that you were able to help out with some Halloween makeup. I remember being proud during father-daughter activities when you could do hair and makeup and the other dads couldn´t ;) Blessing of being a dentist?

 

I´m emailing kinda early this week because we´re going to spend the day with the whole zone and with President and Sister Jackson today! It´s gonna be fun :) 

 

So this week was definitely not a "normal missionary week." (If those even exist, haha) We had pretty terrible numbers, but it was interesting getting a taste of some of the less-common responsibilities of full-time missionaries. Like, for example:

 

Exhibit A: Comforters

 

S****´s wife, E***a, asked us to attend the funeral of her mom this week in a Catholic cathedral. We were happy to help, but it did feel a bit strange sitting there with our nametags and everything. That´s not something they teach about in the MTC!

 

We´ve been regularly visiting a couple in their 70´s, L**s and N***y. N***y was an inactive member of 2 years, and Hermana King/ Diezi just baptized L**s the week before I got here. L**s has been SUPER sick. His lungs fill with liquid, so they´ve had to go to the hospital frequently to get his lungs drained. He´s been in a lot of pain, and they haven´t been able to come to church because of it. For the last two weeks, they´ve been in the hospital, and L**s passed away yesterday, just two days after receiving the Aaronic Priesthood. C*****o told us that right after the blessing, L**s sat up and said that he wanted to preach the Gospel. Because of what we read in Doctrine and Covenants 138, we know that he´ll still have that opportunity on the other side :) (Maybe along with Grandpa Mason!) N***y told us that he had been praying to just not feel pain as he died. She told us that for the last couple of days, with the help of medication and from heaven, he has had no pain. We´ll have our third funeral in three weeks this week.

 

Exhibit B: Detectives

 

Remember M**u? She´s the recent convert of the Aviles Elders that´s living on the streets here in Gijón. She has a lot of health problems and for the last 2 weeks has had 0 contact with the church! Because we can´t find her and she won´t answer the phone! The Aviles Elders were understandably super worried, so we went looking for her the other morning. Thankfully, we found F**** and he told us that he´d seen her and she´s fine, but we still weren´t able to find her. Prayers please!

 

Exhibit C: Fixer-uppers

 

The branch here has been having some big problems with gossip lately, and it´s the main reason we have a bajillion inactive members here. We visited some members this week that tried to open that can of worms with us and vent about the leaders. It´s been interesting as we´ve worked with them on forgiving the imperfections of those in the church here, and we´ve used President Uchtdorf´s talk a couple of times. I also remember hearing a quote from, I believe, President Eyring, that was something like this:

  The leaders of the church are striving to reach a standard of excellence they did not set, in a calling they did not ask for. 

One of the cool things about the church is member participation and the fact that the church is run by voluntary service. It´s so important for people to remember to be patient and forgiving!!

 

We also kinda felt like propagandists this week, haha. We took a two-hour bus ride to District Conference (stake conference) yesterday with the whole branch, and every single talk was about missionary work. All of the missionaries were pointed out during talks, asked to stand, and when President Jackson spoke, he had us all come up and sing "Called to Serve." Haha, it was a fun day to be a missionary!

 

Oh, and F**** has a testimony of the church! On that day when we were looking for M**u, we were also trying to find F****, because he hadn´t been answering his phone either. We prayed, left the piso, and found him five minutes later! He was really happy to see us, and told us that he´d been in the hospital for a problem with his lungs, but he´s okay now. We taught him the entire Plan of Salvation, and then felt prompted to have him kneel with us right there and ask if the Book of Mormon is true (he´s already in 2nd Nephi!). He knelt, prayed, and then as we sat there quietly, he looked up, and said, "It´s true!" :D Haha, it was intense. 

 

It´s been really tough keeping our investigators progressing because they keep falling through on us! We haven´t been able to teach F*****a at all, nor P***a or anyone else. Kinda crazy. But we´re sticking with it!!

 

We have been teaching a man named A*****o, though. That´s been super awesome. He´s from Bolivia, and is a super friendly, eager-to-please, 30-something yr old guy. He has accepted everything we´ve taught in the past two lessons, and frequently thanks us throughout the lessons. He gave his first prayer out loud with us yesterday :) His schedule is super crazy with work, though, so we can only meet on Sundays. We´re praying that we´ll somehow be able to see him more frequently!

 

Anyway, as you can see, it was an interesting week. And yet we still found ways to always be fulfilling our purpose as missionaries, "Invitar a las personas a venir a Cristo al ayudarles a que reciben el Evangelio Restaurado mediante la fe en Jesucristo y Su Expiación, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la recepción del don del espíritu santo, y el perseverar hasta el fin."

 

I´m super grateful to have the foundation in the Gospel that I have. Everyone we come in contact with has a crazy life in some form or another, and it´s just so, so clear how the Gospel can help them out. Everyone needs this!!

 

I hope you all have a great week :) Thanks again for the pics!

Love and miss you tons and tons!

 

Love,

 

Hermana Grover

 

PS- Mom, do you remember that blog post from a Mormon mom about "drops of awesome?" Would you mind sending that to me? I´d like to share it with one of the members here :) And also, if you have a sec and can Google some missionary object lessons, that´d be stupendous. We´re trying to find ways to make our lessons a little more interesting :)

 

PPS- Is it lame of me to say that Brad and Kate look way-the-heck older already?? Holy moly, you two!

 

Love you!!