Thursday, August 27, 2009

August 23, 3 New Investigators!!

You heard right folks, we got 3, not 2, or 1, but three! That's huge in our area. Usually we have one or two we're working with, now we have 6!!
NI:1 Beda,
We met her tracting a couple weeks ago, she said she has some friends who are members. So we started talking to her and for a couple weeks have tried to set up a time we could go see her but for one reason or another they all fell through. We finnally saw her on wednesday. We taught her a 1st and tried to get her to church, no show. However, we should have another lesson with her this week. She's in her 60's, spanish, and interested.
NI:2 Jose
Also met him trackting. Getting investigators tracting is very rare in the whole mission. He's a 60/70 year old man, speaks spanish. We taught him and half of his drunken neighbour who kept interupting with dumb questions. The miracle with him is we commited to baptism on the 1st lesson. Elder Amundsen told him in about 4 weeks. I slightly have the feeling he didn't understand all we taught, so pray that he can. We do have a little problem with him that we've never faced before... he can't read. So we're going to have to get creative with our commitments.
NI:3 Salvador
Tracting!! Miracle week I'm telling you. We had an awesome lesson with him yesterday. He asked all the right questions like, "why did god take so long to restore his authority" and things like that. He actually told us about how the bible has some faults from the people who translated it. I'm so excited to teach him more. He saterted asking questions about after death and things like that, the lord has definately prepared him. He speaks both spanish and english really well, but we're going to teach in english cause it seems to be better for all of us.

Anthony and Sergio are coming along really really well. Anthony understands really well, better then Sergio actually. We taught both them this week, Sergio love the Plan de Salvacion puzzle and kept asking where he can get one. Mom, anyone leaving on a mission can't leave without it. It has helped so much, especially with these boys. It can be hard to teach kids, especially if they get sidetracked easily. Tonight in our FHE we're teaching the 10 Commandments, I'll tell you more about that in a minute. Right now everything is on track for their baptism the 6th.

Still haven't heard any news from Edwin. Unfortuanetly we can't call him and ask cause he's out of our area. We can't even call the Elders he's supposed to be working with. We're going to try and send a letter to him today.

For the HUGE Grand Family of less actives we're working with, well everyone came to church this week. BOOH YEAH!! So like we promised, we have something special for FHE tonight, plus we're going to fix a time we can go to the temple, but tonight Elder Amundsen and I are going to dress up as Moses (guess who's idea that was ;))and teach the 10 Commandments. Not only will we have fun looking like fools, but it can count as a lesson for the boys which is really going to help.

We are starting to see the fruits of ou labors and we are loving every minute of it! Not only did we get those Investigators but we also recieved a member refferal and some other referrals which we'll keep us busy as well. Our prayers are being answered, thank you so much and keep up the good work at home. The people here are in need of the love of Christ and they are in need of your prayers. I love you all and hope all is going well at home. Love you.

Love Elder Groves

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

August 17 trio.

Almost done with my first transfer!! Wow, I just got out here and come wednesday I wont be the youngest in our District. Well... maybe. We'll see if anyone in my district/zone train. We should have something, from what I've heard we are getting something around 20 new missionaries in on wednesday. That's a lot! Our misson is pretty young, that's why my trainer trained on his 3rd transfer. He just barely hit his 6 month mark counting the two in the MTC. Oh well, he's still a really good trainer. Transferes is all anyone in the mission can talk about. We had a Korean Elder go home this week, so his companion has been with us since thursday night until wednesday morning when he meets his new Comp. That's the trio mentioned in the subject. I have learned a lot on how to teach and a lot with Spanish, (cause Elder Ortiz is from Mexico so we help him with English and he helps us) He gave me a lot of good Ideas for door approaches and 1st lessons. He also gave me things to be grateful for with my companion. I'm glad my companion doesn't have picky taste when it comes to food. Speaking of food I had Mariscos this week. That's seafood soup. Lets just say the baby Octupus suckers didn't have much of a taste but felt pretty cool on my tounge! I guess that's why latinos like hot sauce.
We got two new investigators this week! Two boys from the family's we've been working with. Anthony and Sergio. Sergio is 9 so he needs the missionary's to teach and Interview him. Anthony and only 8 so we still teach him but the bishop will interview him. They are really fun to teach. We taught Anthony the whole Plan of Salvation on Friday, thanks to Mom's puzzle ;) and we are going to try to find another time to teach Sergio. They have a bap. date for Sep, 6th. So that will be fun for them, getting baptized the same day as your cousin. Hopefully we can get there Grandpa the priesthood by then so we can have him do the baptizing.
We also have been working with a sister named Patricia. She is an old Investigator of Elder Amundsen and the only problem with setting a Bap. date with her is we want to get approval from her non-member husband first. We haven't taught her in a little bit but plan to do so this week.
Other then those three, we still have the Rosy 3. We had Mariscos with them this week and they actually brought up the divorce. They kinda had a discussion through us, saying "She thinks..." and "He thinks..." so they worked things out and told us they would call the number. It's so frustrating cause sometime they are doing things better then the members. She's already paying tithing and attends church every week. Dry member's are good but still DRY! You'd think we would get a lot more since the Spanish ward is almost as big as the ward back home. Our we're hoping to get changed because the building we go to now is far away and we have a branch that meets just outside our area, oh well Pres. said the that's not up to us, but he said he'd talk to our Stake President about it anyway. We had Pres. interviews this week me an my companion had to do it together cause the Pres. Blackburn had to leave, but that's what we asked him about.
We haven't had much time in our own area, well as much as we can while juggling two areas, but we spent an hour tracting on sunday, and the first two houses we knocked were the last two. We taught strong lessons at both and set up return appointments at both. Plus when we had Elder Ortiz we found a referral and set up a return appointment there. AWESOME!
We have a pretty interesting meeting tonight with Jubea, she wanted us to come back and explain the Book of Mormon, and she wanted to bring her Bible teacher.... we told her we're going to leave the moment we feel contention. She said she understood but still want us to come. Pray for us. I'm really kinda nervous but we'll see what the Spirit can do through us. Luckily we'll have Elder Ortiz with us, and he speaks perfect spanish.
Other then those the work is going well. We hope to see some real fruits of our labors soon, we've been working really hard this week and well continue to, there's no way for the work to progress if we don't. We have seen a lot of success of finding, now we need those we found to progress, feel the spirit and make the changes neccisary to obtain the fulness of the gospel and the full happiness that comes with it.
Sounded like everyone had a real good time at Family Reunion, I expect some sweet pictures soon, and if mom sends me the chord, maybe I can send some cool ones to you. Like me covered in flour from our "Flour-ball" war we had for a Zone activity today.
Spanish is wierd, I think I can understand a little better but then someone starts going off on something and I get nothing. I hope it improves soon, Elder Amundsen will probably leave next transfer and I could get someone who doesn't speak spanish. Luckily a lot of the people here learn a little English so I can barely get by.
That's gonna have to do it for now, we have a lot to do today. I love you all and love hearing from you. I hope all is going well with work and school and houses and jobs. I pray for you and thank you for your prayers, they really help. God can't give us what we need til we ask, and it helps to have that second witness. Orarles, Tengo que it, hasta proximo semana!!

Elder Groves (arbolitos is what Elder Ortiz calls me, it means a grove of trees)

Agosto 10! Ay!

Muchisimos gracias por las cartas de la familia! Me encanta cuando yo puedo leer cartas de la familia todo!

I'm glad to hear Tahoe is going great. It was fun to hear from everyone, sounds like your having a blast!

Agh, I'm still all itchy from my haircut from Elder Balich, one of the deaf elders in our zone. I'm just glad my hair looks better then when I cut Elder Amundsen's.

This week was really good and really sad.

Really good cause we met some new people contacting, some members and non that was pretty exciting. We'll see how the follow ups go this next week.

We started teaching this guy named Jesus. (hey-soos, just so you don't get confused) when we told him about the first vision, he went off on these stories, about his dreams with red start, Jesus on the cross, the stars shooting throuhg his legs. It was wierd. We tried to get him to read the book of Mormon but he said he couldn't cause his pastor wouldn't let him. with a little convincing we got him to say he would. So that was tuesday, thursday we were going to have him again but he cancelled and we haven't heard from him since.

We saw Stacy, she was pulling in as we were leaving a less active down the street. She had someone in her family die so she said she just needs a few days, she says she thinks about us everyday though, I just hope we can get a lesson with her soon.

We've seen Rosy a few times, but we're backing off a lot more. Maybe by this they will really start working on the divorce so they can get married so they can get baptized! They are practically members. They go to church, they even go to the BOM class on every tuesday. They give out pass along cards to their friends. They're better then some of the real members. They just need to get divorced!

One of Rosy's friends we started teaching again. Her name is Patricia. We stopped by the other day, taught something real quick and set up a return visit. Returned, I kinda entertained the kids while my companion talked, and her and her two kids came to church! We hope to see her a few times this week.

Last night was kinda sad, we went to the temple with Edwin and Vanessa, we asked the Elders that will be working with them to come too, so they can meet them and we could kinda do a "hand-off". It was really cool, we watched the Joseph Smith movie in the MIssion Home then we took a tour outside the temple. I'll see if I can load up some pictures next time to show you. Vanessa seemed really hesitant about the new Edlers but I think they'll be great. His Baptism date is set for the 15th, I hope he can keep it. We do get to go to it so I'll tell you how it goes.

We spoke all spanish this week, that was hard. Good thing I had splits with one of the ZL's so I got to speak english with him. The rest of the week was interesting, still kinda fun though.

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting in our English ward. That was interesting, it's an interesting ward anyway. I wanted to talk about how member's can be missionaries. I don't really remember what I actually said though. Something to that extent. Elder Amundsen said it was good, so I guess it was.

We have Noche de Hogar again tonight, it should be pretty fun, hopefully we can start teaching the two little boys so they can get baptized. I think almost everyone else is baptized.

This Saturday was deep cleaning day, we spent the whole day, from ten to six cleaning our house. I don't know if we will ever use that many paper towels ever again. It was DEEP cleaning. When our DL came by to inspect it, he still said we had more to do. We had to move everything clean behind it. clean windows, cupboards, doors. I spent probably an hour and a half on the shower alone. It was hard work. We only went to our dinner appointment and one family that night. Then went back to clean some more. It's ok, our house is super clean now!

Tell Ben we talked to these people from Managua, Nicaragua. They were having a bible study when we knocked, they want us to come back and teach more about the Book Of Mormon and why we need it. The only side effect, they want their teacher from church to come too. I hope it doesn't turn into a bash.

That's about it, work is hard in compton. It's going though. Pray that we might find some new investigators this week.

I love you all and miss you, have fun in Tahoe!!! Don't trust anyone in wearwolves, and eat lots of Grandma's cookies for me!

Love, Elder Groves

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Agosto 4!!

Yeah, sorry you didn't get this yesterday, all the libraries in LA county were closed for the day. So we get to do it today!
Looks like everyone is looking forward to the Tahoe trip! That's sweet, I don't remember much about the last trip except the cold water.
This week has been a week of up and downs. One big up was Edwin got really excited about getting baptized but we had to move the date back to the 15th instead of the 9th. We started talking at one of his lessons about the temple and his member wife Vanessa said she went and saw it with her missionaries. So we planned to go see it this saturday. Cool!!
Then the down came. We were supposed to have an appointment with him saturday, and I was really excited for it, then he called me friday night and said he's going to have to cancel cause they are dealing with some family problems with his sister. Ok, ok. I called him saturday night to see when we could reschedule, he said he didn't know because they're moving. WHAT!?!? (that was my reaction more or less) So my first investigator that I've really watched grow and progress is moving to the Harbor area. Luckily still in our mission but we can't continue to teach him. He had about two lessons left then his baptism. They even came to church on sunday, at churh they were asking all kinds of questions that I wish I knew the answer to. One thing I did know was that if he wants, we can still do the baptizing. So he supposedly moved yesterday, we're going to call him or pass by to see if they need help.

Stacy-I had splits again this week and we were supposed to see stacy saturday, she called and cancelled. Haven't gotten a hold of her yet. We'll see what happens today.

Sunday was a tough day, we tracted for 4 hours straight. However, we did find a few people who seemed truley interested. One actually had a lot of member friends which usually helps.

We had a Noche de Hogar (FHE) last night with three families, who are actually one big family, and it went really well. We did this Object Lesson with a Tea Bag and fire. It was fun, the kids loved it. Mike or Shaina probabaly know it, I think I had seen it before. Anyway, we talked to Ivan/Bryant (english and spanish names) he's about 17 just graduated and right now a mission doesn't look like his future. We asked him if he wanted to do what we call a "mini-mission" it's where they stay at our house and do everything with us for a whole day. It's really kinda cool, just a way for Young Men to see what Missionary life really is like. He's bilingual and probably speaks better spanish then us, so he would really be helpful. He seemed really excited about it and so am I.

Well, that's about it for this week. I go on splits again with the ZL's tomorrow and that's when I should get my bike. Right now it's just waiting for someone to pick it up at the mission home. They called me and told me it was there, I just haven't seen it yet.

Love you all, hope all is going well at home. Thank you for your support and prayers, pray for the work, pray for Edwin and Stacy and that Rosy can finally get divorced. I'll talk to you again next week!

Elder Groves

P.S. I did get the picture of Marley and the toilet, so I guess I can see pictures. But having them is much better! ;) also, mom wanted to know how much weight I gained, 10 lbs since home. However, my companion says he's never met a missionary that likes to exercise as much as me, so I'll lose it pretty fast.

July 29

!Hola mi familia gordito! (Hello my little fat family)

Another great week, we'll work backwards today.
Went to the temple this morning, awesome! the LA temple is huge!! They have different rooms for parts of the session it's awesome. I loved it and definately needed the extra spiritual boost.

Last night we had dinner with Edwin and Vanessa. We walked in and they were both wearing Te Amo Peru shirts on. Apparently yesterday was the independance day of Peru. So we had a great Peruvian dinner then taught a lesson. I told them I wanted a picture of them and their shirts so they gave us Peruvian Soccer jearsey's to wear and we took a nice peruvian picture! ha ha, they said they'll get us some new jersey's. The lesson went great, talked about baptism and confirmation. Edwin had a lot of questions about repentance, which is good. Better he ask them then not talk at all. Both Elder Amundsen and I agree that they are trusting us a lot more now. The only thing is we gotta get him to church, it should happen not this week but next, he finishes up his last class this week. I hate to say I have favorites, but he's one.

We still need your prayers for Rosy. Pray that she can get divorced so she can get baptized! We spend two or three times a week at her house, which I think is too much for someone who isn't moving I guess. But she keeps all our commitments so she is techniacally progressing, but I convinced Elder Amundsen that we don't need to be spending as much time at her house. We gave her a card with a phone number on it so hopefully she calls it soon.

We had a really cool experience this week at being at the right place right time. Last week we had a missed appointment with a less active, so we decided to tract her neighboorhoood and we found Stacy. (I don't know if I told you about her or not) She already has a BOM and so we said we'd stop by some other time.
We are going to go see the less active again and are a little early, when we pull up Stacy is just walking out of her house to give her dog a walk, we start talking and she said she's been thinking a lot about what we told her the other day, about prophets. She's going through a divorce and needs some extra spiritual boost. So... we taught a first lesson yesterday. Awesome lesson! Both Elder Amundsen and I felt like it went really well. We asked her about baptism and she said she would like to learn a little more first. Perfect! That's why were here! It was a really good day yesterday!

This whole week has been kinda crazy, with P-day a couple days later cause of the temple, It's been a little wierd.

I went on splits on monday, I was with our DL's companion who has a month on me. He liked being the Senior Companion that's for sure. It was a rough go, but we taught a few lessons and did some good tracting. Although he did run through a red light... twice.... I guess that's why he doesn't drive much. He was kinda a slower missionary which was very different then Elder Amundsen and I.My comp said there probably isn't a missionary in the Mission who likes to exercise as much as me. Wierd. Maybe wanting to run everyday is a little too much? We walk fast, plan specific, and are always in the gospel way I guess you could say. It definatley was a different experience that's for sure.

We finally tracted down this referral we've been trying to meet with. First off, we tried to meet him in a church. While we were waiting I got curious and it was a hot day so I wanted to be inside a nice AC church while we waited for him and our member. I noticed a door was unlocked. I opened, then thought I better wait til our member arrives. We start walking around to see if they are at some of the other entrances. We start hearing this wierd sound. Come to find our it's the alarm to the church. Ooops. So we call the Branch Pres. and he tells us the code to turn it off. (he was not happy about the $700 fine the church just got) We get in, it's cool, our member comes, the Branch Pres. comes to make sure everything is alright... and that's it. No Jonathon. Ugh! We finally met him in the park later that week, all we wanted to know were the Do's and Don'ts of the church. We didn't teach much. He wasn't very interested.



A lot happened. I hope you recieved this well. I did try and send it to more people then just Dad. I sent to all the people I have e-mails to. Anyway, time to get back to work, this city sure ain't gonna save it's self!

Love you!

Elder Groves

July 20th

Mitchell is now a member of the Church! The baptism went great! It was the hottest baptism though, the church didn't have A/C and it was in Huntington Park, which is a hot area anyway. I was slighlty hoping I'd fall in the font when uncovering it so I could cool down. Boy it was hot! Plus all the Elders have to wear suits so that made it double hot. (Don't count this as a first baptism mom, I only taught him 2 or 3 lessons)

We had a battle this week, but we came prepared. Prepared with the power of Lysol! I had never seen so many ants in my life, it took a good our to handle it. Then we fought the Boss, a Cockroach! Our weapon of choice... Elder Amundsen's flip flop. He had to chance next to that fantastic rubber!

Ok, baptism and bugs.. check. Now Deborah, oh Deborah. We took her to church like I said last week, then we tried to set up another time we could meet her. She cancelled that time because she had some family unexpectedly come in to town, oh yeah then she decided to leave to Detroit with them for a couple weeks! So pray that we can continue to teach her when she gets back.

Now we have Rosy, we went to her house on friday to have dinner, but when we got there we only found her "friend" Sanchez there cleaning the house. It turns out, when I had called Rosy the night before to confirm la cita, she was in the hospital. However, apparently she was to sick to even realize that herself and said she would be feeding us. She had gone in because there had been a lot of stress build up cause of things going on in her family. We saw her at church on sunday so she's out, better, and feeding us again tonight!

We have been really lucky this week with trackting, the past two days we've only trackted about an hour, and taught about 4 people in that hour. We'd be lucky to do that in two hours let alone one. Most of the people here are gospel bible worshipers who love their pastor and don't want to look into making him mad. Or they believe all churches are true and just are too lazy to read the B.O.M. It's sad. Hopefully though we'll get some good contacts out of those. One of them is a 17 year old and we had to teach him how to tie a tie one time we visited. He couldn't stop saying how much he liked Elder Amundsen's tie.

Boy have I eaten a lot of food this week. Thursday we had a lunch cita (appointment) at 2:30-3:30 a meeting at 4 and dinner at 5. I felt like I was to explode! I would say I didn't want desert but the next thing I know I'm given Ice Cream.
The food is Awesome though! We had some from Mexico (tamales), El Salvador (I don't remember the name) and Peruvian (not Spanky don't worry). I love this city and all it's diversity! We run into people from all over the place. Someday I'll write you and tell you I'll be able to tell the accents in spanish, but now I'm just trying to tell the Spanish!

We had a great P-Day today, we went to the Hollywood Bowl, and then to Hollywood Blvd. My companion had never been to the Blvd. before so he just soaked it all up and loved it. I loved seeing things and remembering when I was either with Rena or my Choir. You wouldn't believe the memorial on Michal Jacksons star! I got pictures of it. The Hollywood Bowl was pretty cool, Huge! They also had a little museum that taught about sound and the history of the bowl, that was pretty cool.

The weather here has been so-o hot! It doesn't help that most of the people we visist don't have A/C, only a small breeze from a window. I'm just glad we have A/C above my bed or else I wouldn't be able to sleep! Oh well, nothing I can't handle.

I'm glad to hear your busy with another show, and one that's going to be great by the sounds of it! I hope the weather can cooperate. Good luck with everything, I love you all!

Love,
Elder Groves

P.S. Next week's e-mail won't be til wednesday because we have temple P-day that week. We go to the temple once every other transfer.