My First Parasite!

Well family it has been a whirlwind of a week. I wish I could tell you its been a good week, but its been quite difficult to be honest. This week will be better though.

First off I didnt have cambios. Im still here in the area of Espino and Im still with Hna Estevez. The only change is our zone split. So now instead of being in the zone Ahuachapan, Im now in the zone Gloria. The next cambio is only 4 weeks. so it is going to fly by.

At the beginning of the week I was just feeling super tired and weak and i didnt know why. This was the first week that I didnt have a huge motivation to work hard and I didnt know why. My stomach kind of felt a little weird, but nothing terrible. But my companion told me i probably have a parasite. I didnt believe her though cause it wasnt anything terrible, but we went to the doctor and had examens and yes i have a parasite. Ive been taking medicine so hopefully that takes care of everything. Its just been made tired and ive felt like i couldnt work like i wanted to.

Afterwards though at the end of the week ive been feeling a lot of anxiety. I think being sick from the parasite just made me really stressed and now ive just been struggling with anxiety. I received a blessing from Hno Trejo and that helped a lot. I understood the whole blessing it it was definitely what I needed. I still feel anxiety and im still struggling though. I know that Christ knows how I feel though, and I know that through him and his atonement I can receive strength.

So yeah this week has been kind of tough. Anyways we didnt really find new investigators this week cause it was a rough week. But weve been working with our investigators from last week. We have a baptismal date for an 8 year old dayana. We we were hoping her mom would be baptized too, but she says that she is not interested right now. they are related to the bishop so the girl has a lot of support in the church. Dayana is always smiling and she loved learning and she is excited to be baptized and go to church.

We have some other investigators too, but I dont really have time to write today.

Weve still been visiting with Alba. It was fun to make pupupsas at her house this week. Her son was baptized a few years back and he is inactive now, but he was visiting with us the other day and hopefully we can get him to come back too. Her husband is always away from home working. He was there when we were making pupusas but he was gone the rest of the week and on sunday. So it is kind of hard to work with him, but hopefully we can continue to talk with them.

This week I finished reading the Book of Mormon. I think this is my third time in my life personally reading it. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and I know that every word in it is true. Im seriously so grateful for it in my life and the guidance I can receive from the scriptures. Now im starting to study the new testament and hopefully i can start reading jesus the christ.

I really didnt get much time to write today but I will write more next week. I know this week will be better. I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers. Im grateful for the opportunity to be out here.

Love,

Hermana Groneman

Transfer week

Wow I cannot believe that I have made it through my first six weeks here in El Salvador! How crazy! Cambios are in two days (on wednesday) and we dont know what is happening yet. We were supposed to find out this morning...but then for some reason they are waiting until tomorrow night to tell us. I dont think that anything is going to change for me or my companion but you never know. My companion has been here for almost six months now... but I think she will finish my twelve week training before she gets switched. This week went by super quick again. So for Pday there arent really a ton of like tourist sites to see so we usually just kind of hang out around the city, sometimes shop around, just whatever. We write at different times so it just depends on what time our district gets assigned. Last week we wrote super early and afterwards we went to an area called Ataco. It is seriously SO beautiful there. I guess that is like the dream place to serve for all of the hermanas, or i guess at least in this zone. It is more touristy with the shops, but it is just really pretty and also the city is just really calm. I bought a few things, but not much. I tried to remind myself i have my whole mission to buy stuff haha. but that was the first time i had been around a touristy area. This week we got to teach some English classes. It was SO SO SO weird to be in a place where i was supposed to be speaking english. I kept wanting to speak in spanish and my spanglish was just weird. It was funny. I dont know if we will keep going to the English classes or not, but it was kind of fun. So like last week I think i mentioned I was quite stressed about areas because I felt like we didnt have people to teach and we needed to find nuevos investigadores. So this week we went out into a different part of our area that we hadnt contacted before. I dont know why we waiting until now to go out into that area, but im glad we did. The problem with this area is we cant go there at night because there isnt a lot of a light out in that area and its kind of dangerous, so we can only work there in the afternoons. But it is out of the city and out in the field and it is SO gorgeous in that area. I dont think i have really said much about beautiful it is here in El Salvador, but it really is. Literally so beautiful and so green! Anyways but I really like being out in the country area of our area. And the people are much more receptive out there. we found quite a few new investigators out there. That really helped this week and I really enjoyed working out in that area. I dont think I have talked much about Dia de Reposo, but keeping the sabbath day holy is really a big problem with the people we teach here. Basically at least half or three fourths of the people you talk to either own a small store out of their home, work somewhere in the city, or make pupupsas or torillas out of their homes. So it is really hard for people to accept that. yesterday was probably the best day out of the whole week. This weekend was stake conference here in ahuachapan. They had a special meeting yesterday from 9 to 10 for recent converts or investigators. We had 5 investigators in church which was really great! Also guess who i saw at the stake conference. President and hermana Peterson! I talked to them for a little and they took a picture with me! So maybe she will send it to you on facebook dad. Anyways after church we headed out to the far part in our area and we had a lesson with a woman named Yessenia and her daughter Dayana who is 8. They were a referral from people in our ward and they came to church yesterday. But we hadnt taught them yet. But when we taught them yesterday we learned that she has talked with the missionaries many times and almost was baptized but for some reason she didnt. But yesterday we invited her to baptism and with a baptismal date and both her and her daughter accepted. I think it helps that her daughter is now 8 so they can baptized together. They were both super positive and we are going to work a lot with them this week. Also after that we went and visited a woman named Ana who we knocked her door the other day. She hasnt really talked with the missionaries before but she has heard a lot about mormons. She is evangelic but she really is interested in learning about mormons. She was quite positive. and she has two boys one who is 8. So we are going to work with her a lot this week too. one of the other investigators who came to church yesterday is named william. His wife wasnt very interested because she already goes to a church, but he was and we are hoping to work with them too. So anyways yesterday was just full of great things that happened. And Im really glad we are starting to find some new people to work with. Alba is doing great still. We had a Noche de Hogar at her house last week, and it was great to see her kind of direct the night at her house and have her share her testimony. It is really great to see her at the church activities. Tonight we are going to her house and we are going to make pupusas!!! Im super excited! Im still trying to work more on following the spirit. I really want to be a missionary who works through the spirit and it is something im working on. I felt like we had some good experiences knowing which doors to knock this week. We do work with the members, but I want to continue working with them more. One thing we have been doing is going to members house and showing them these videos and then reminding them of Elder ballards invitation at conference to share your testimony with one person before christmas and also to kneel in prayer with the missionaries. i really have a strong testimony with kneeling in prayer and fasting with the members. I truly believe that is how we had the two baptisms we have had in this area. So i invite you to invite the missionaries over to the house and kneel in prayer with them for their investigators. Also to share your testimony with one person before Christmas. I love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers as always! Hermana Groneman

Wow another week already has gone by! how crazy! Literally this week went by so quickly so I cant even imagine how fast the mission is going to go by in a few months. This week we had quite a few good activities and things that helped the week go by quickly. So on tuesday we had the baptism of Alba (I will try to send some pictures= It was so neat. I feel like I made a little more of a difference in helping Alba to be baptized then I did with Kevin since i didnt teach kevin much before his baptism so it was neat for me. She was a little nervous at first I think. After the baptism though all the people there were congratulating her and giving her hugs while she was sitting in her chair...and after most of the people were done her husband who was sitting behind her gave her a hug from behind she just started crying. Her husband isnt a member but we hope to eventuallyto teach him. But it was neat. Also before the baptism we were asking her little girl if she wanted to be baptized, she is only 7, and she said no.....but after the baptism i asked her again and she was like yeah i want to be baptized when im 8! haha it was cute. One of the other times we visited with them later in the week we were playing jacks with alba and her little girl, it was fun. Thursday we had another multizona so that was absolutely great! I really love multizonas, and i wish we had them more often. They just remotivated me and help me to work hard. and always seem to help me with the things im struggling with. Thursday night when we got back to our area, because the multizonas are at the mission office, we had a talent show night with the ward. It was super fun and it just reminded me how much this church is centered in families and I wish that more people could enjoy the blessings of the gospel with their families. Friday was super fun because hermana hunter who came here the same time as me, came with us for the whole day because her companions are sister training leaders and they had a meeting. That day was just super fun and I want to have more days like that where we have fun but also work hard. We contacted some girls in the street who were jump roping and we played with them for a minute or two. It was great. Ive mentioned the familia Trejo, Rene Trejo and Isabel Trejo. Our ward mission leader and cook. But Hno Trejo got realized as ward mission leader and I am SO sad. Plus Hna trejo is having a baby in like a month so we dont know how much longer she will be our cook. But they literally are our parents here. Yesterday they were just giving us advice and I always feel better after i leave their house. I really cant explain how grateful I am for them, and I wish I could express it more to them...I always say thanks and stuff, but I dont think they understand just how much they mean to me. I have had kind of a stressful week though. Im struggling balancing the stresses. I feel so stressed about the area and our investigators, and also stressed that im not becoming the missionary I want to be, or that im not learning to be the right kind of missionary, or stressing with the language always, or stressing about not knowing the lessons well enough. I know I need to be patient, so its just hard to deal with all of the stress. But Im learning. I try to just take it one day at a time. My spanish the past two days has struggled. Generally ive done pretty well understanding people. But Saturday and sunday for some reason i just feel like I wasnt understanding anything. its so discouraging. But yesterday i bore my testimony in church and Hno Trejo later was telling me how great my spanish was and how fluent it sounded and also another member we ate dinner with was saying how beautiful my spanish was. Literally those two comments were answered prayers to help me feel better about the language. I honestly cant even explain to strength I have received through prayer here in the mission. It is incredible how weak and inadequate I feel. But with Gods help, somehow I am doing it. I am so grateful for prayer. Our area really needs new investigators. It is really difficult to find new people. Tons of people here are catholic or evangelic and that is part of why im really stressed about the area, because im just learning but yet we need to step it up. I dont know. Also Im trying to have experiences where I follow the spirit, but i have to admit dad that i havent had many experiences yet where I felt like we have really followed the spirit. I am trying to work on that more because I know that it is only through the spirit that we will find new people. It was great to hear from you all again and I am so grateful for your support and your emails. I cant even explain how much it means to me. I love you all and thanks for your prayers as always. next week will come fast! Hermana Groneman