Es la felicidad de uno

wow another week has flown by.

This week i`ll have 1 year in the mission! wow i cant believe it. I cannot believe that a year ago we were driving to the salt lake airport and i was so nervous and now ive got a year as a missionary. The time really is flying by.

Anyways well this week we had a good week, maybe not as good as last week but im still pretty happy about some of the things that are happening here in this area.

First announcement is we are moving houses this week. Really the mission doesnt like have 4 missionaries together in the same house. So yeah we are separating. Truth is im pretty sad to separate from the hermanas because it is so funy living with 4 and now im so used to it that it will be a little weird to just live with my comp but apparently our new house is SUPER nice....and we get the new house so im pretty excited about that. I think we are moving tomorrow morning.

In church this week we had 3 people in church.

First is Carlos Chafoya. He now has like 5 times that he has attended church. He really is super great but he just want to feel a little more confident in church. He doesnt like feeling new and like he doenst know what is going on. He really wants to learn how to sing the hymns so we are going to help with that haha. I think we can help him to have a baptismal date here in the next 2 weeks for sure. We just want to be patient and not pressure him so much that we lose him. but hes great.

Also Julio Casarez came to church again. Oh what a character. We are going to wait more time to help him get better from the side effects of his addiction. But really he is so great and so hilarious. Whenever we ask him a question he always starts by saying "Es la felicidad de uno". I think im going to remember that saying for the rest of my life..no matter what happens with Julio. Ive really learned the gospel is really simple....the gospel really is "la felicidad de uno". To give you an idea of how crazy julio is with the side effects was apparently he couldnt even get out of his bed to walk before we met him...but now he can walk...but he falls a lot. But we had success because he only fell 3 times in our walk to church on sunday....HAHAHA. But hey hes getting better every day. We`ll keep working with him because he is always waiting for us to visit him.

Also we had Manuel Mejia in church. This was his second time assisting church. Manuel is really great...and ALWAYS giving us food haha. He really likes the church and everything. But now we found out that he needs to marry his wife. So this week we are going to talk more with his wife and him. So we`ll see what we can do to help him. Manuel has a lot of friends in the ward who have had major changes in their lives through the gospel so he really likes that.

Also we have a few other people we are visiting. This last week we found an investigator named Rosie. She is probably liek 20 something and she is pregnant and she lost her mom like 2 years ago. When we found her she said she felt spiritually down. We have only visited her twice but she says in the two times we have visited her she has felt much more peace in her life. She doesnt feel ready to go to church quite yet but i think if we have a little patience with her she`ll go. Im excited to teach her.

Anyways Im just enjoying the last few weeks with my comp. Its almost obvious that i will be staying in this area another change. Also yesterday we atteneded the baptism of the elders of a teenager Giovanni who we started teaching and then gave him as a reference to the elders cause he lives in their area. But it was a great baptism and he was wanting a picture with us and everything. Its great to know that sometimes we just need to help find the people and plant the seeds.

Anyways i love you all tons! Thanks for the emails and for everything!

Love you,

Hermana Groneman

Another Miracle

Hola familia,

I dont even know what to say this week, but i feel like it has been a week of miracles and I have really felt Christ´s love this week. We had a much better week working with the members and we´ve got a few people progressing that im really excited about.

Well first off on wednesday we had an activity when we went to the temple with our investigators. We didnt get to enter but we just do a tour outside of the temple and then there are little classes in the chapel by the temple. it was a super great experience and we had several investigators who went. Hermana Moreno (a member) brought her husband and a few family members and then also we had Carlos Chafoya and Manuel Mejia who went. Ill tell you a little more about them. Also Rosa was able to go to the temple and participate in baptisms.

So ill tell you a little about our investigators.

We have Julio Casarez who i think i told you a little about last week. He is our investigator who had years and years with the addiction of getting high off of glue. It is incredible the love I have felt for this investigator. He basically looks like a drunk if you were to see him walking around in the street because he cant walk well for all of the side effects. But he really wants to change his life. It is almost adorable because he is like a little kid. We always teach him the house of a member and the thing is he doesnt have a good concept of time. He always remembers the day we say that we are going to visit him but not the time. The other day we went for our appointment with him and he wasnt there so we went around asking for him in the streets...and nobody knew where he was but they all said "hes not home but i saw him walking around with that book of yours"....so yep our investigator walks around the streets with his libro de mormon. But yesterday we had a lesson with him. Really he understand and we have learned the best way to teach him is to tell him the topic and then just let him talk and he ends ups teaching himself. Yesterday at the end of our lesson we were putting another appointment with him and he just went off saying that we can come whenever we want because when we come he feels more happy and went off saying a bunch of things about how happy one feels when they are trying to come close to God and he was like if you can come every day all the better because then i can feel happy every day and you two and two "angelitos" that God sent. Yeah knowing me i definitely teared up and i couldnt stop the tears. I have never felt the love of Christ more in my life. I cant explain how much people would normally judge Julio. But during the lessons i always think about the miracles in the new testament. Christ healed so many people. Physically and Spíritually. Christ may not be here on the earth in this moment but he lives and i know he can do miracles. Technically Julio has a baptismal date for the 31st of august...but we arent sure if we are going to wait more time because we really have to make sure he is prepared. But he wants the gospel with all of his heart. He always says he´ll be baptized when we say he is prepared to be baptized.

Also we have Carlos Chafoya. He is still progressing little by little. We want to help him to be baptized in this month. He really enjoyed the temple trip and this week at church he stayed for all of the classes first the first time so that was great! Apparently after the temple trip he stopped by one of the members (william the pizza guy) and was telling him that he has desires to be baptized but his family doesnt really want that. I think its because one of his sons is a pastor for another church in another town. But we´ll keep working with him and im sure he´ll be baptized soon.

Also Manuel Mejia. We have been teaching manuel for quite awhile now. He is one of my favorite investigators haha. He is an older guy but hes always walking around talking to people in the streets and he always gives us food or buys us food in the street and in his house he has these sweet rocking chairs. He is super postive but his challenge has always been to attend church. He never wanted to leave his house alone...but this week after the temple trip we were able to commit him to church and he went. definitely a miracle. and that is super great because he always says he wants to be baptized but we always say you have to attend church first and keep going. So we are hoping he can be baptized too.

Anyways its been a good week. Things are going good in this area and with my comp. My comp really has a great love for the gospel and we have fun screaming/singing Called to Serve when its pouring buckets of rain.

Also i got the package!!! SO great. I loved the shirt so much, its perfect, i wore it yesterday at church. also the treats were perfect. and dad I LOVED getting your autobiography. It was so neat to read some of your stories. obviously i havent read much. But its so neat. Thank you for writing it because its something ill cherish forever.

Love you all so much, thank you for your support in everything! Im loving the mission and time is flying by so fast.

Hermana Groneman

Miracles

Hola familia!

well its has been a pretty good week i would say. Definitely i have seen some miracles this week with our investigators. The good thing is this week we were able to find some new investigators and we were able to work a little more with the members so that is really great.

So this week I want to tell you about two of our investigators.

First is Carlos Chafoya. He is the reference of the member that has the pizzeria. We had started teaching him a couple weeks ago with the member and he has been super positve. Last week he didnt go to church because he had some meeting he had to go to. But anyways he has been one of our main progressing investigators that we have been excited about and planning and preparing for baptism in august. But this week we went to visit him on friday (we never have set appointments with him because for his work he has to leave at whatever moment so its better that we just pass for him) and when we got to his house he came out and said he didnt want to keep receiving us and he wasnt going to keep going to church...apparently he had had some arguments with some family members or something and he just didnt want to keep receiving us and he said it would be a waste of our time. That was so hard to hear. It is so hard to just find investigators who will receive us and so when they finally receiving us and are progressing the last thing you want to hear is they drop you. So we left in that moment pretty sad and disappointed. Friday night we were just praying that somehow he could change his heart. We just prayed because we knew that there wasnt anything else we could do... just pray that something could change in his heart and that he would have desires to go to church. The next day on Saturday we were walking in the street past a members house and one of the hermanos left and told us "hey ive got something to tell you" (this member is kind of less active) but he told us that he had talked with one of his old buddies and turns out it was Carlos. They talked a lot about the church and they were talking with another member too and apparently he said he felt really bad for what he told us and that he wants to keep going to church. I am so so so grateful for the members who helped to give him encouragement because he came to church on sunday and we taught him sunday night and all is good now. We almost lost him as an investigator but God really does answer our prayers.

 

Our other investigator we had in church is Julio. Wow he is quite something. he is 32 and he got high of of paint for practically his whole life...so he practically acts like a drunk guy...he can hardly walk without falling over but he stopped getting high like a month and a half ago. We have to teach him like a little kid because he doesnt understand everything super well. But truth is is he is super positive. He knows a lot of members and he is always walking around in the streets telling the members that he is going to go to church on sunday. He wants us to teach us in the house of member because he doesnt like the influence of his family. We left him so pamphlets and we reminded him to read them and so when we left the house we were walking away and he just came out in the street and yelled "hermanas!! aquí tengo los folletos!" and he was holding up the pamphlets in the middle of the streets. Apparently he was talking with a member the other day and they were talking about how his walking has improved a ton and julio told the member that he thinks when he is baptized he will improve a lot more. He told us during the week that on sunday he could be baptized when he went to the church...but then we explained to him that he needs a little more preperation for baptism. But we´ll see what happens with him. I really actually love to teaching him though because i feel love that the savior has for each one of us. There is no exception of people. He came to church on sunday and we are going to keep teaching him a lot.

Anyways those are some of investigators and i just wanted to share a little about them with you guys today. This week we have an activity to go to the temple on wednesday with investigators so im excited about that.

I havent received your package yet but i probably will really soon.

I cant believe that you guys had hermana culotta over for dinner!! that is so crazy. I remember telling her that i hoped one day she would meet you guys. Find her and have her over for dinner again and send me pics and tell her hi! i have her email so im going to send her an email. That is so neat though.

Anyways i hope all is well. I cant believe we are now in august, its crazy!

Sounds like all is good at home. Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Love ya

Hermana Groneman

Staying in Atiquizaya

Hello to the fam.

Well its been another week. I felt like it went by pretty quickly and truth is i dont know what i have to tell you...but we´ll see if i can think of something.

At the beginning of the week all was pretty crazy because of changes...even if you dont have cambios its always just crazy thinking about who is going to have changes and where people are going to go and what not. I was super sad because Hermana Morris (who lives in our house) had changes so it was sad to see her go. Shes a great friend in the mission and we are definitely going to hang when we get back to the US. It was so much fun living with her and joking around. But the new hermana in the house is cool too. She is hermana lucero and she is from colorado so thats all good.

I think the hardest part of the mission would have to be finding people and that is what we have been trying to do this week. Our leaders always tell us we she work close to the churches and close to the members...but we have worked really hard in those parts of our areas...and they are small parts...so this week we decided to branch out a bit. I dont know if its the smartest idea...but im hoping that we can find some hidden families a little farther away...but we´ll see. Its actually pretty great because this country is so beautful. Every day its like going on a hike. That makes life fun. I have really noticed how important it is to follow the spirit in finding people. The days when i truly have a prayer in my heart in every moment are the days that we actually find people. I know that God is helping me in this work, i just need to be humble and rely on him.

i wanted to tell you guys that a few weeks back we found this joven who sells fruit with his mom and his brother in the street. his brother is inactive but we started teaching them just on the side of the street where they sell the fruits. We invited him to church and he went to the first week. But he actually lives in the area of the other ward in our chapel, so we gave him as a reference to the zone leaders. But he is going to be baptized in a few weeks. Its great to know that our work in finding people is worth it. We dont always get to finish teaching the people but its important that we always are finding people.

Dad you were asking what im doing to help my comp finish out strong. I think the best is just work and be an example. A few days this week she was falling asleep during the lessons...haha...so after i had to tell her that she has to stop doing that haha. Its all good though. Ive noticed in the last few days shes been teaching more from the heart so we´ll see how we finish out her last 5 weeks.

Yesterday we were teaching this older lady the first lesson about the restauracion and it was quite funny. We were inviting her to pray to know if joseph smith was a prophet and she told us " oh i know joseph smith was a prophet..because it says it in my bible over there...yeah it says he was a prophet...i know he was a prophet.." hahahahaha i was dying because obviously it never says that but the thing is is normally the people are always like "show me where it says he was a prophet in the bible" it was really funny. I had to hold in my laughter. And after she said she would pray and if she received an answer " if i receive an answer that its true im leaving my church and im gonna go with you guys" haha so we´ll see how this lady progresses hahaha. Something that I dont think i have told you guys much about is how hard it is to teach a lot of people here for their education. We really are blessed in so many ways in the US, including our education. The people here really dont understand very well. Its so hard because really if missionaries teach the doctrine well it really all makes sense...but the level of understanding is so low here. not only is it hard to find people to teach that let you in...but its even harder to find people who actually understand. Thats the hardest part. You are teaching good and everything but they just dont understand anything. They just know that we are talking about God and Christ. But its all about patience so its good.

Also mom i got your package/letter. It meant a lot to me that letter. Thank you for sharing that experience with me because it meant a lot. It was so nice to get a hand written letter, so thanks :)

Anyways about our investigadores....we didnt have anyone in church this week so that was sad. but we had another family menos activos (the familia gonzalez). We have had quite a bit of success with the menos activos so i hope we can keep working with them. Them and the familia martinez are two beautiful families that i hope we can help encourage to go to the temple one day.

Anyways i dont have any more time so ill have to wait until next week. All is well here and im loving the mission. i cant believe its going to be august! ahh.

i love you all so much!

Hermana Groneman

Michelle is getting Married

Hello to the fam!

First off BIG SHOUT OUT to my bestest friend in the world Michelle Bonham who is engaged!!! cant believe my best friend is engaged, but im so so happy for her and that she is getting married in the temple. Everyone go to her wedding for me since i wont be there haha.

in other news.

good news this week. We had our short interviews this week with Presidente Spjut. And no need to worry....i found out that President and Hermana Spjut are Utah Ute fans! So Im in good hands ;) GO UTES! haha no but really they are such great people. I found out that hermana spjut also loves dance and theater and she was in the nutcracker several times...so yeah i think we relate really well haha. It was great to meet and talk with them a little. Our interviews were short and just to get to know them a little. But Presidnet Spjut told me something that has helped me a lot this week. I was asking him in my interview how i could be more satisfied with my efforts and the work im doing and how i can have more success as a missionary. He told me the story of when President Eyring was called to be an apostle and how one of the general authorities told him " i can see it in your eyes...you are starting to doubt yourself..." and it really helped me to realize i cant doubt myself. God called me this mission and he trusts in me. This week i really tried to focus on doing my part and when i do my best God makes up the rest. I saw a lot of miracles this week for that. Really it is amazing. This whole week i just tried focusing on doing my part and just being an instrument in His hands. There were some days where i just didnt know how we were going to find new people to teach but somehow we found new people.

Also sunday in the morning we went to pass to bring our investigadores to church and they all had excuses for why they couldnt go or they werent there. So i was a little disappointed walking to church, but i just thought...well ive done my part and i cant do anything else about it...so the whole time walking to the church i just prayed in my heart that in some way the other investigators that we have (that we couldnt pass by their houses) that they could go to the church. And yep, God made up the difference. We had Alvaro Moreno (he is the husband of a member and we are helping him to be baptized in the future but he has to wait a few months) and also an investigator Carlos (who is an older guy) came to church by himself, and then another member brought one of our investigators who are teaching. It really was an answer to my prayers that those three came. They all had great experiences. Also the Familia Martinez (who are less actives) came again this week! this is there second time attending church this month, so i am really really happy for them.

Im really exicted to teach our investigator Carlos. Its super funny because i basically have to yell in the lessons for him to understand me. But he is great. He thinks all of the members of the church are great people. We have been teaching him with a member who lives close in his house. THe member has the pizzaría. Its awesome. I feel like when we work with the members its like on the church website or all of the conference talks when you here about members and missionaries working together. Its great.

Anyways we have cambios not this wednesday but the next...i think next monday i will know if i have cambios or not. Truth is i kind of hope i have cambios because if not i will probably be here for two more cambios because my comp is finishing her mission so if i stay i will be here for two more cambios. But we´ll see what happens.

Also i would just like to tell you i am officially obsessed with chocolate-banana-peanut butter milkshakes. basically how i end every night.

Well i dont really have much to tell you. Im super happy here in the mission. This week was SUPER HOT. didnt rain once. so im hoping for some more rain this week.

Well i love you all so much. Im so grateful for the mission and all of the experiences i have here.

I´ll hear from you all next week!

Hermana Groneman

New Mission President

Hola Familia,

Wow this week went by SUPER quick. I know i always say that, but really it went by super quickly. It was a pretty good week and we have found more people to teach this week.

To start off on Tuesday we had our meeting to welcome Presidente Spjut and Hermana Spjut. It was only with 2 other zones, so it was smaller groups. They are awesome! So nice and so humble and im so excited to learn a lot from them. When they walked in they came and shook hand with each one of us and they are already trying to learn all of our names. When President Spjut read my last name he just stopped and thought for a minute and then he asked, "do your parents live in springville?" haha yep so i guess he knows you...or well he knows that you know his sister dad. Remind me how you know her? she taught you spanish or where did you know her? Anyways im really excited to work with them. I think we are going to have personal interviews with president this week, but we´ll see. We havent seen a ton of changes in the mission but something that he told us that he learned from his training is that now as missionaries we are going to be teaching the lessons from lesson 5 before baptism now. Before we were teaching lesson 5 after baptism...so that will be good. Lesson 5 is a lot about temples, the priesthood, temples, family history, missionary work...so yeah im excited. Also presidente Spjut wants us to start focusing on temples with our investigators from the beginning. That they can see baptism as their ultimate goal. I think that will help a lot.

Well this week we were able to find some new investigators and i am really grateful. Truly it is so hard to find the people. And knocking doors isnt that effective. But this week we have received several refferals from those miembros and im really excited to keep working with these people. There is a member who lives in our boundaries but assist another ward but he has been super helpful. He has a pizzaria called Pizza Helaman. its great. But he has invited his neighbors to come to his house, we chat for a little and share pizza, and then after we share a message. its been great. Im SO grateful for the members who help us in this work. It is not easy to find people and the truth is we NEED the members.

We have a few investigators but they dont have baptismal dates yet. They are newer investigators. We are teaching a 19 year old and this week we watched the joseph smith movie with him and he said at the end when josephs dad is baptized he got the chills. Afterwards we knelt and had him say a prayer. But he prayed in silence...so we dont really know what he said....but it was thee longest prayer ever haha and after he sat their for a long time just thinking and such. He said after that he feels calm and everything...but he still isnt completely sure. I think he knows its true but he is just doubting but his whole family has always been catholic. But we are going to work more with him to recognize his answer. he is just a little shy but he is great. The only thing is he doesnt like to wake up on sunday early...So sunday we went to pass for him at his house but no one was awake in his house so no one answered the door. But we´ll keep working with him.

Also we are working with the husband of one of the members. He wanted to be baptized before and had an interview with the mission president but because of things in his past he has to wait several months and has to assist church regularly. Before he wasnt really motivated to do it but he has had a great change and we are visiting him once a week. We are trying to help him become like a member while he is waiting for the opportunity to be baptized. He probably wont be able to baptized until december...but it doesnt matter if im here or not for the baptism, we are here to work and invite others to christ and im grateful for the opportunity to work with this family.

Anyways It was weird that the other day was the 4th of July. Time is flying! its super crazy, but im glad that you all enjoyed it. I hope you are all enjoying summertime.

Dad im really excited to read your history when i get back, that is really neat.

I hope all is well and i love you all so much!

Until next week,

Hermana Groneman

 

Parasite take 2

Hola fam,

well remember back the the beginning of my mission when i had a parasite....welp ive got another one. Finally one wednesday i was fed up with my stomach hurting me the past couple of weeks so i decided to talk with the mission nurse. It wasnt even that bad but after three weeks i was a little worried. So i went and had tests done and yep ive got a parasite. But the truth is i feel worse this week then i did before i knew i had a parasite. The parasite didnt even really make feel that bad but now im on medicine that is super strong. About a half hour after i take it im dead tired and about 5 hours after i take it start to feel nausea and i dont really want to eat...but i have to eat to take the pill. it would be easier if i was only taking it in the morning and at night but i have to take one during the day too. Honestly its been such a hard last few days. It is so hard to keep going in every moment and we have had some bad days with lessons falling through and everything so our work this week hasnt been that great, but honestly i just feel good at the end of the day that i was able to make it through the end of the day. I know thats sad to say but its been tough. The worst part is i still have 5 more days to take these pills so i need lots of your prayers. I talked to the nurse about the side effects but there isnt really anything i can do because i have to take the pills to kill the parasite.

But a side from the difficulties....there are always miracles. I dont have a lot of time to share with you about the other things that happened this week but i want to share with you about Rosa.

First off Rosa is going to be baptized on saturday and i couldnt be happier for her. We had her baptismal interview yesterday after church and all is good to go. But at the beginning of this week we passed by her house to teach her. We actually hadnt talked to her about her results from her doctors apointment (the last week we talked to her son and law and thats how i knew) so anyways at the beginning of the week when we were talking with her we started talking with her and she told us the news. I have never seen someone so happy. She told us that the doctors were shocked when they checked her results and everything. It really is a miracle that she didnt have anything. But the most amazing thing was she told me that when she was at the doctors all she could think about were the words i told her last thursday. The night before her doctors appointment i had told that she didnt need to worry about anything and that everything would be okay. But the thing is when i said those words they just came out of my mouth but when i said them i was thinking....i dont know why im actually saying this because truth is i dont know if everything is going to be okay....but when she told me that when the doctors told her the results and the only thing she could think of were the words i had said it made me realize that as a representative of Christ i really can promise blessings. I cant explain the miracles i have seen with Rosa. Also this week when we set her baptismal date she repeated telling her story about how before she had received the missionaries and everything but how when she went to the temple open house she felt the spirit so strongly but at that time she was asisting a different church. I remember my first visit when she told me that and i was just thinking now is her time. And its the truth. She really is a person that was prepared.

Anyways i dont have more time, but I´m hoping for a better week. Please pray for me that i can have the strength to work this week. Im so grateful for your support and your love. I love hearing about everything that is going on in your lives at home and im so grateful for the experience.

Love you all,

Hermana Groneman

ps ill try to send pics next week