Feliz Navidad

FELIZ NAVIDAD! Wow I cannot believe its already Christmas again. I´m so excited for another Christmas here in El Salvador! This week I feel like we have a lot of fun activities going, but also the work on christmas day and christmas eve kind of sucks because everyone is out doing their activities...so we end up walking around all day. But we have some good plans, so I´m excited! This week went by really quickly but it was a good week for the most part. Ill just let you know some of the highlights for the week. Mostly the end of the week we had a lot going on. On Friday we had the mission christmas activity so that was a ton of fun! It was with half of the mission so I got to see a lot of friends - Hna Alvarado, Hna Murray, Hna Lucero, Hna Elms and lots more. Also The daughter of President Spjut returned from her mission so that was fun to meet her. We had like skit presentations, watched some christmas music videos, gave gifts, ate a lot of food, played games, and watched the Ice Age christmas clip. It was tons of fun and a relaxing day. It finally actually felt like Christmas haha. Then i got all of your packages!! i had the package with the gifts for little kids, the package from mom and dad, and then grandmas package. Also thanks Grandma and Grandpa for putting money on my card, im excited to buy some souveneers to bring home! im excited to open up all the gifts on christmas! Also ive started giving out the gifts and the kids really get excited so thanks mom. Also Saturday we had a baptism!!! wooo! Hermana Timoteo was super excited to have her first baptism in the mission. I feel blessed we were able to baptize in her first few weeks because it is helping her to be excited to keep working hard and it was a neat experience for her. Cesar is great and he has a great potential in the future. He has really learned a lot about obedience and his conversion was really quick actually. I know that the Spirit helped him a lot to know the truth and to be committed to following the commandments. Also I am really greatful for the Family Umaña because we always taught Cesar in their house and they were a big help. The only funny thing is that he told us on sunday that saturday night on the way home from his baptism he was on his motorcycle and he had one of the other kids in the ward with him and the other kid didnt have a helmet so he got pulled over for a ticket for not having a helmet. So there is a good way to start out his "new life" after being baptized. haha but it was funny. But all is well. I was sad that yesterday the familia posadas couldnt go to church. they came down with the chickungya or whatever its called. So yeah But they have been starting to read the book of mormon more and they really love when we come over. Like i have always said with them I feel like its patience with them but I really feel like they are going to be baptized in the future. Anyways all is well here in the mission. We really just need to focus on finding more people. this week should be kind of hard because of the activities of everyone. On christmas eve we are going to go around caroling with the other missionaries and ward members here in metapan. I love you all so much! Enjoy Christmas! Im so jealous of you mom and dad that you are going to Jerusalem. Take tons of pictures and send me lots of details! Also take care and dont get sick! Cant wait to talk to you all on Christmas morning!!! Con mucho amor, Hermana Groneman

Another week in Metapan

Another week here in Metapan! Well family its been a long, hard week but we ended with miracles! I am really seeing how the Lord is blessing us with miracles. The only thing he requires is faith, obedience, and diligence....it doesnt matter if we aren´t the best missionaries or if we have weakeness but the Lord really does bless us. First off let me tell ya Metapan has brought in the Christmas Spirit!! maybe i can´t go to temple square this christmas but Ive got the next best thing in el salvador. Metapan city park! its so beautiful with all the lights. Ill have pictures next week. And this week we just happened to be walking through the park when they turned on all the lights. We were walking through the park and there were a ton of people and we were contacting a family and all of a sudden fireworks went off and all the lights turned on. It was great timing for us to be there haha. Also fun fact for the week: Apparently I sleep talk in Spanish. hahaha well thats what my comp says. Im feeling pretty proud of that. Anyways now ill let you know about our week. So the beginning of the week was pretty rough. Not horrible but i was just so tired. This week my comp (like i expected) was struggling a little bit more with the spanish and getting used to the culture. But what I love about her is even though i can tell there are some things that are hard for her, she still has a really good positive attitude. Its just so funny to see how much I have probably changed. But during the week days I felt like everyone we talked to was catholic and didnt want anything to do with us. We had lots of lessons...so it was nice that we werent walking around in the sun all day....but i almost feel like its worse when the people let you in their house but they dont even care what you say and they dont want anything to do with it. I was feeling down just because I am here to help people. And they people dont understand how we can help them. But then saturday we had a day of miracles. Saturday afternoon we had an appointment with a lady that had stopped us in the market on monday. We were walking through the market and she was like "Hey I have a question for you hermanas" she wanted to talk to us and wanted to know where the church was. So we took her number and set up an appointment for her. Saturday she met us at the church and we just started talking to her getting to know her and we found out that she actually was a member that was baptized in Tacuba in a different area when she was little...but shes been inactive. We just started sharing with her like "hey we are here to help and we want to help you spiritually in your life" and then all of us sudden she came out and was like "Necesito tu ayuda" (I need your help) And then she explained to us that she has problems with the law of chastity. I felt the spirit so strongly in that moment just that someone actually wanted our help. After days this week with no one appreciating us, I felt like it was a tender mercy that monday we walked through the market and she passed by us. I told her how I felt so grateful that God had put us in her path because I want to help people...and the both of us were in tears (yeah just sitting out on the side of the street because the church was closed haha). But her name is beatriz and Im excited to help her and keep working with her. She was a tender mercy. Then Saturday afternoon we had a lesson with the familia Posadas. We had planned last sunday to go visit them with a member who was baptized last week. He is a little bit older and I just had a feeling that he would help us commit them to church. We went and we had a super long lesson...because the familia posadas and the member were just talking about everything...but i felt like it was fine because they were forming a friendship. but then the member who is a convert shared his testimony and his experience and they said they were going to go to church. So yesterday they went!!! It really was a miracles because I have been praying so hard for them to go. I know they want to know what church is true and I know with patience that they will accept this gospel. They had a great experience and a lot of members were talking with them. Im excited to see what happens with them. For december we are still helping Cesar (another investigator) to keep preparing to be baptized on 20th of december. Hes doing good. He has had problems with the law of chastity too but I think hes gonna be ready. Also the familia torres. I havent told you much about them lately. The hno torres hasnt been coming. So in ward council yesterday we talked about it and it looks like we are just gonna baptize the hermana and her two kids. So Im excited because I feel like we have good things going for us. Things are going great with my comp. Its so hard because she really struggles communicating in spanish or really just understanding the people. But little by little she´ll get it. Im really happy with her and Im really happy with what is going on in the mission right now. I love you all so much! I hope all is well and enjoy the holiday season! Tell everyone hi! Also tell grandma mimi hi....i feel like i havent heard from her in awhile. Tell her I love her. Much love from El Salvador! Happy Holidays! Hermana Groneman

Bucket Showers

HOLA! Well here´s to another week. A week full of ICE cold bucket showers and hour long bus rides. And I have loved every second of it. haha. I love being a missionary and I am so happy to be here. So I will let you all know what has happened with Cambios. On wednesday we had the cambios meeting and I received my "hija" (my new missionary) who will probably be my last companion. Her name is Hermana Timoteo and she is from Taylorsville, Utah! I am so excited to be with her. Her dads side of the family is from Samoa. She is such a sweetie, super excited to be here, and has a lot of faith. This is what I pictured training to be like. So Ill tell you a little about the week. last monday was pday so we took the bus as always to write the family. Then tuesday i had a meeting for trainers and had to take another bus ride to santa ana. Wednesday was the meeting for cambios so another bus ride. Thursday we have zone meeting as always so another bus ride. Then friday we had to go to san salvador for the ID visa info for my companion...so another bus ride. So ive spent all the mornings this week in the bus. And because of that we´ve had to wake up early ...which means we have to get ready early...and we don´t have water until 6:30 or 7am so YEP bucket showers all week this week. My poor comp. Especially cause at this time of the year the water is even colder. But this week we wont have to travel so much and it will be normal. But apart from that I really love it here.. This week it has hit me. I think especially being with my last comp. I dont want to end. Training is exhausting and the days are long and tiring....but I have found myself each night this week laying in bed with tears in my eyes. Cause Im not ready for it to end. The mission is so hard, but I love it. I love the privilege I have to help people and the privilege I have to be a representative of Christ. Especially at this time of year I am really feeling the Christmas spirit. We have been showing a video to everyone that all the missionaries around the world are showing to people called "He is the Gift". we´ve been focusing with people on helping them understand the true meaning of Christmas and helping them realize what they want to give to their heavenly Father this Christmas. I´ve been thinking about what I can give to my Heavenly Father this Christmas....and I want to give him my all as a missionary. I am so grateful that I get to have 2 christmas´ in the mission. I will be honest that last year I wasn´t too excited that I would end up having 2 christmas´ away from home. not that I didnt enjoy christmas last year because I did and it was a neat experience...but I wasnt sure that I wanted to be away from home for another christmas...BUT oh how things change in the mission. I could not be happier to be here for another Christmas in the mission. I feel like I am going to have lots of good memories of this Christmas in the mission. Everything is going well in our area. We are still working with some of our investigators and we are also dropping others and looking for new people. I´ll let you know a little more next week how everything is going with the investigators. Im just focusing on helping my comp. Her spanish is probably how mine was at the beginning...but i think at the end of her mission she will have a better accent than I have. I feel bad because I know how she feels when she wants to express the feelings in her heart and she just doesnt know how. Its hard but she´ll get it. Im expecting that this week will be a little harder for her now that the first week excitement is wearing off a little, but she is super excited to be a missionary and she is really great. Today we are going to buy a small christmas tree and decorate a little in the house :) But I love you all so much. Thanks for your support and prayers. Im glad you had a good Thanksgiving and I hope you enjoy the Christmas spirit! Hermana Groneman

Training again

Hola familia, This morning we received the call. And this week is cambios. Hermana Bustos has cambios...so I am going to be staying in the area...and YEP I am going to be training again. I´m actually really excited and I´m hoping that Im going to have a much better experience this time. Training is a lot of pressure and is really tiring but I´m excited to have the opportunity again. I´m hoping I´ll get to train one of those girls from Utah...but who knows what will happen. Tomorrow I have a meetin for trainers and then wednesday is the changes meeting. Normally when someone is training you are with that person until they finish training (which is 2 cambios), so whoever is my companion will probably be my last comp....thats crazy. This week we had a pretty good week, except for the fact that I had a cold for most of the week. That makes knocking doors and teaching in lessons really fun when your nose is running and you sound like a man. but its all good. haha I feel a lot better now. This week we had some interesting things happen with investigators. With the familia Posadas. We are still teaching them but they only have time for us on saturdays but I really feel like with them we just need to have patience and they will progress. They are just really scared to go to church first (more him than hna posadas...she is much more excited). They want to receive their answers first that this is true....but we have been explaining a lot of things and they really are starting to like everything that we have taught. There scared because of the things that other churches do here and they think it is going to be the same, but we have explained a lot more about the norms of tithing, the dress code, and rules like that and I feel like soon maybe this week they will go. Every time Im with them I really feel like they are chosen and prepared for us. We just need patience in teaching them. I have a lot of hope for them. The familia Martinez. We have been teaching them for like a month now. Rosa and her sister Magdalena went to church like 2 weeks ago. This we were teaching them and we were really sad because Rosa started working and had to work on sundays. We taught her about keeping the sabbath day holy but we didnt really think she was going to apply it in her life. During the week her sister, her husband roberto, and their family friend Joel committed to go to church but not rosa because she had to work. So then yesterday we passed for them in the morning to go to church and rosa was there in the house and we were so suprised because she told us she was going to go to church with us. then she told us she had asked for Sundays off and her boss wasn´t happy so she decided she was going to work there anymore. We were SO surprised. It was amazing that the whole family went to church. BUT .....then after church we asked how it went and they said they didnt have a good experience and i was just thinking...."What?" we were so happy for their efforts to go...and then they dont like it?? They said they didnt like how the members were on facebook on their phones during the meeting and how the talks weren´t using very many scriptures and it was more personal experiences. Honestly i think its more just that they are used to how the other churches are. It made me really sad...but I know we have done our part to teach them and help them to make changes in their lives. We are going to help them try and receive their answers that this is the true church...but its making it kind of difficult that they didnt enjoy it. Then we have Cesar. We just started teaching him like last week. he is like 24 and his uncle is a recent convert. He went to church and he really enjoyed it (haha its funny how in the same meeting the investigators can have completely different experiences). But we taught him last night and early in the week we had asked him if he could see himself being baptized in the church and he wasnt quite sure. But last night he told us that yes...and that in these days hes been reading the book of mormon and now he isnt going to drink coffee and he feel different. He has a baptismal date for 20th of december. We´ll see if he can´t keep working towards this date. But im excited to work with him. anyways thats all I have to say. Next week ill be with a new missionary! im really loving life so I hope you all have a great thanksgiving!!! Love you all! Hermana Groneman

Monte Cristo

hey fam! well im so so sorry but this email is going to be super super short because we are going to Montecristo today! its a tourist site here in metapan and we are going with 2 families in the ward and then the 6 of us missionaries here in the ward! Ill just tell you quickly about the week. This week went by super super quick. To be honest we had some struggles here but everything that happens here in the mission is for our growth and learning. Ive got a lot of goals that I really want to gain the confidence of the ward members here and help strengthen the ward. More than anything I want to do that. Also Tuesday i had intercambios with Hermana Garbett! BEST DAY EVER. hahaha no but it was SO SO SO fun. Its so crazy to talk about how much we´ve changed and just to think about all of those times back in the CCM. At the end of the day we bought pupusas and after we planned we sat in my hammock and ate pupusas and ice cream and such. Hermana Garbett really is my bestest friend here in the mission and i know we are going to be friend for life. She´s had such a great impact on me. Anyways i didnt even have time to read your emails...i just took pictures of the emails and ill read them later today on my camera...so sorry if you had questions that i couldnt answer...but we are writing in the church building here on laptops not in the stake center...so we had to take turns and now we are leaving. But i love you all and im loving the mission. THere isnt any other place I would rather be right now. Love you! Hermana Groneman

Carnival is Over

Hello Family! This week went by really quickly! I don´t even know what I have to tell you guys this week... This week was good because we were able to work a little better with the members. The carnival is practically gone now so there isn´t so much going on here in Metapan which I think has made it easier for us to leave with the members. This week wasn´t amazing in success stories, but I feel like me and Hermana Bustos are working hard and so I´m happy with that. We had a lot of people this week committed to come to church this week. 3 different families said they were going to come and that is more than I have ever had in any other time in my mission. Thats something that I love about Metapan is there are a lot of families, unlike my other areas which were more split families or single people. But when Sunday came...we only had the Familia Torres (the family that we had to reschedule their baptismal date....which Im still not exactly sure what is going to happen with them). The familia Martinez is a young couple family who said they were going to come but I think they ended up going to Santa Ana..but they are good they always receive us and read what we leave them to read in the Book of Mormon...I think they are just going to progress a little slower. Also the Familia Rodriguez was going to come with us and when we passed for them Sunday morning they had plans to go but...they said they couldnt go because they didnt have dry clothes and the clothes they were wearing were old and worn down and they didnt feel comfortable going like that....ugggh haha. we tried convincing them that it didnt matter if they didnt have anything better to wear. But they say next week they´ll go. We´ll see what happens. The other family that I told you last week Familia Posadas (the older couple) didnt go either. We have only been able to visit them once this week. They maybe are people that have a lot of doubts, but I have hope that they will feel the spirit and especially as they read the book of mormon they will find the answer to the questions they have in their lives. We´ll see if we can get them to go this week to church. On saturday this last week we had a ward activity cleaning the church building and we were outside with the youth cleaning the chairs and it reminded me a lot about when i was janitor at cherry creek elementary hahahaha. but then at night there was a baptism of a little girl in the ward and i had a small spiritual experience. The four of us hermanas sang the primary song "i like to look for rainbows... (i think its really called When I am baptized or something like that)" but it just made me think of my own baptism and to think have big I am now. When we were singing I just looked at the little girl and thought about how crazy it is that 13 years ago i was baptized and now im here as a missionary. To think how that little girl can grow up in the gospel and gain her own personal testimony and maybe one day she´ll be a missionary. I dont know it was really spiritual moment for me to remember my own baptism. Anyways all is really well here for me. Time is flying and Im just enjoying the work. Im excited because this week well tomorrow I get to be comps with hermana garbett for a whole day!! wooo! also i think next pday we might get to go as a district to a tourist site called Montecristo...but im not sure. But anyways thanks so much for all of your support. I love you all so much! Hermana Groneman

Many Mini Miracles

Hola familia, Well another week in Metapan. I guess now that im getting to know the area i can tell you a little more. Practically all my area is city. There are areas that are out in the country in the outskirt towns but we dont really ever work there so im all in the city. A lot different because my other areas didnt have as much city. But i like it. Also something way different is there are actually some really nice houses here. Its so weird to me to see some big houses because in my other areas there were hardly any big houses...but there are some here with two floors and everything. Also its nice because a lot of people here actually have dvd players and tvs so we can watch movies which is nice...in my other areas we weren´t always able to do that. A lot of the people here have set jobs so thats a little different but im still loving this area. This week was a little stressful to be honest...but something that I´ve learned about the mission is that God always gives us just enough miracles to help us make it through the week. I know that He knows me and my needs and He is aware of what I´m going through. Mostly this week was stressful because we were supposed to have a wedding and a baptism yesterday of the Famila Torres. They already had their baptismal date planned when I got here but I´ve always felt a little hesitant. Obviously I want everyone to come unto Christ and be baptized...but when they are ready to make this covenant and stay faithful. I´ve felt very cautious about the whole thing because I feel really worried that they are going to go inactive right after they got baptized. But obviously im not gonna come into the area and say they arent ready because i dont know them as well. But this whole week a lot of the members were against the wedding/baptism because they hardly know the family and such. and there were a lot of problems with the planning and I just felt really stressed about everything. Before I went to bed Saturday night I just prayed that if they were ready and that if sunday was the right day that everything would turn out right....but if they werent ready that something would happen so we could plan a better date for when they are ready to be active members.....Then on sunday morning the husband didnt show up to church and that was going to be his 3rd attendance. But because he didnt show up he couldnt be baptized so we had to cancel the baptism and the wedding. Honestly i was really sad because especially the hermana was really excited....BUT i knew that there was a reason that it happened and i know that there is a reason that all along i have felt hesitant about the whole situation. We are still working with them so that they can be baptized in the future. But Im hoping we can help them be ready to make this commitment so that they will always remain faithful members of the church. Its kind of a hard situation to explain but yeah. This week also there was a big carnival in metapan. SO many people in the city park and such. It reminded me a lot of art city days. So that was fun to see. But also it made it a hard week for us to work with the members. BUT this week on tuesday we went to the temple!!! I love the temple here and im sad that was mostly likely my last time. I got to see hermana peterson! i thought they had already left but nope! Anyways the temple was great and it really helps to strengthen us spiritually. Im so grateful for temples. Some miracles this week were just small things. Like when all of our plans fall through and we say a prayer and someone lets us in to share a small message. Or small things like that. Also this week late at night we contacted a family in the street and they said we could go visit them the next day. When we went to visit them they were ready for us. We got to know them a little and at the beginning of the lesson we asked if there was anything specifically that they wanted us to ask for them in the prayer and the hermana said she wanted us to pray so that they could find what church is the true church. I knew in that moment that this family was prepared for us. Later when we were talking with them they told us that they always pray as a couple (they are a little older but they dont have any kids) and that they have been to several churches but they dont like them....then she told us a little about their lifestyle haha (she likes to talk a lot) and she went off talking about what they eat and their diet and how they dont drink coffee ,) hahaha i just couldnt help but smile the whole time. We have an appointment to visit them tomorrow and im excited to see them progress. Anyways thats basically it. Sorry if it was very scattered my email. But anyways life is good here. I can´t believe its already november! But i hope all is good at home. I love you all so so so much! Hermana Groneman