The Life of Riley

I have no choice but to know the power of my own "Free Will"

2012-01-25T22:40:00.000-08:00

I just had a mind blowing experience. One for my own history book. I don't know exactly how to describe the feelings accompanying it, but mostly it's comfort and inspiration. I know God has a plan for me, but I need to choose it. That has never hit home harder than it has this week. I know this post may be a lot to read but I'm mostly writing it for me. So you don't have to read all of it if you don't want to. I just know that I need to record the thoughts and experiences of this week somewhere, and seeing as I'm better at typing then I am at writing I decided to do it here.

It all started with a little chat from an unexpected person. I was sitting at home, kinda depressed about life. Nothing seemed to be going the way I wanted. I had missed some opportunities I was excited for, I felt I had almost shut the door on other opportunities but don't know how. I was just not in the best of moods. For some reason this friend decided to come over, and just hang out. He may have been the last person I'd expect to come. Well we get talking about life. The usual subjects, school, girls, and work. Mostly girls. He gave me some advice that has since changed the course of my life. He told me to set some goals of things I could accomplish, but would take a lot of effort and will power to do. So I did. I decided this year I'm going to run a marathon.

Since then, everything has changed. As I've been training for my marathon, I've seen certain things change in my life. I've been more confident, had more energy, and am able to focus more on my studies now then ever before. I've even felt more spiritual then I have in a long time. Now the best part is that it all started with a decision I made. The plan to, no matter what pain, anguish or exhaustion, complete the 26.2 miles.

Now the scary part. So about a week after I made my choice and started training, I found myself studying the very thing that has changed the course of my life. Free will. My ethics and values class had me listening for almost an hour to two psychologists debate about the reality of free will. Whether it exists and therefore we have the ability to change the course of our lives in a matter of seconds, or it does not and our lives have already been predetermined, therefore making free will the simple result of cause and effect with the electric impulses in our brains. Well, I'm not one to be able to focus on two people talking for an hour then read pages and pages of what they had talked about without giving my thoughts a little break. So that was my plan as I was studying the hall of flags on campus. Well my break was a book. "Mere Christianity". As you may have read in my previous blog this book didn't give me the break I was looking for. Instead, I was lured into the idea of a common sense of right and wrong and the power our decision can make. So basically the opposite of the lecture I was listening to earlier. This of course had me stop and think about what I really believe about free will. Well, at that point my spirituality and possibly my own arrogance took over. I saw that a world without free will is a world without hope. Without peace or excitement, without adventure and curiosity. None of the greatest feelings would exist if we could not will our own decisions. With this thought I closed my book and computer and went to study something a little easier to learn. Biology.

My experience couldn't end there though. Seeing that I had some free time on my hands tonight I decided to watch a movie before going to bed. I chose a movie I didn't know anything about, but I've seen it on my roommates shelf for a while and was curious to see it. The movie was "The Adjustment Bureau". If anyone knows anything about this movie it's about the power of free will. After the end of the movie and thinking all about what has happened to me recently I can't help but think I've learned one of the biggest lessons of my life. All the time we worry about doing the right thing. Fearing that a wrong choice could yield some horrible consequences. Well I've been reminded now that the best part of life are those opportunities. The chance to choose to take a chance. We have an enormous potential in us to be incredible people. It all comes down to our choices. From big choices like deciding what school to go to or who to marry. To the little choices of choosing to keep the feet moving for another .2 miles even though the rest of our body may be screaming to stop. These choices form who we are and what we can become. I've come to the ultimate conclusion that no matter what certain experiments say, with our agency we cause all the effects in the world.

Free will

2012-01-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

Look at you. You're reading my blog. What made you decide to read my blog? Is it that you and I are somewhat acquainted or related so you feel an obligation or a duty to read my post and determine for yourself what you now think of me? Maybe you find the blog more interesting than listening to your biology professor lecture on the structure of atoms and isomers in a 25 L beaker of water. These could be some of the many possibilities as to why you are now reading this. Now let me entertain another thought for you. Studies have shown that before you clicked to read, or even consciously recognized the choice before you, you chose. Your brain is constantly working and in use. You subconsciously make the decision of what to do before you even know you have the decision. Some of the worlds most renowned scientists argue the fact that we have no real "free will" but that your choices and decision are merely an effect to a cause. A result of the electric activity going on in your brain stimulated by previous events. Thus our lives, no matter what we do, are predetermined.
Well at least that's what my ethics class wants me to believe. I had a kind of interesting experience today as I sat studying at school. I would read and study my ethics class homework, then take a break and read from a book I'm interested in. The interesting part was that at one point I was reading how scientists want to prove that we have no free will, then for leisure I would read from C.S. Lewis' book "Mere Christianity" stating that all human being are obligated to obey all laws except the law of nature which we choose to disobey. It was almost my two interests and passions fighting each other. On one side, science and health, and on the other spirituality.
Well, as of now the spirituality took over. Lewis talked of the idea that everyone in the world believes in a right or wrong. If they say they don't, simply break a promise and they will say you are in the wrong for doing so, assuming that there was a standard to be kept. An unspoken law agreed to by both parties that the promise would be kept. This is why we have free will. Naturally we see every being understanding and comprehending this unspoken law. Whether or not they follow it is up to them. Lewis also points out that although we may know of this law we don't always obey it. In fact we disobey it almost every day. We make excuses to not do something because of our extenuating circumstances. We didn't call our friend because we were simply too busy. Broke the rule. How you never would have promised to so-and-so to do that one thing if you would have known how busy you would be at the time. Either way we have all made those excuses and we made a choice to do so, it wasn't simply an electronic impulse to the brain but something deeper.
Although free will is true, I don't believe it to be free. There was price paid by a perfect man. A man who never made those excuses, a man who on on his way to see a friend who he had promised to see helped others on the way, and when learning about the death of his friend, broke the law of physics to bring him from the dead and fulfill his promise. Choice came with a price, and consequences have been paid for, if we so choose.
Needless to say I had an exciting study and read today, because I chose to.

What are your thoughts?

The Dilemma

2011-12-07T12:10:00.001-08:00

As the time of pens, pencils, and horrible biology teachers comes to an endI find myself in a small dilemma. With the holiday’s sneaking around thecorner, and hot chocolate beginning to fill my soul, I ask myself one question.How am I going to go skiing this season?!

It's one of great importance. I haven't flown the powder, or cut through theheavenly substance called snow for some time now. The dilemma is that I can'tafford a pass at this time nor do I have the equipment. So I'm left to exploreother possibilities to bring my dream to a reality. These include but are notlimited to the following.

1) Sell my soul to the devil.

2) Give plasma every day I can, then I may have enough to ski the last dayof the season.

3) Sell all my belongings, quit school and get three more jobs. Oneincluding scooping up poop behind elephants during the parades. Where I'm goingto find a parade in the winter is another dilemma.

4) Invent a bestselling app. possibly including animals skiing, flying orcrashing into other animals to solve a puzzle of sorts.

5) Lastly, in a desperate attempt to enjoy the season, I could simply rob afinancial institution, blame it on someone’s identity I stole and spend therest of my life avoiding authorities.

If you have any other ideas, please let me know. Also if you know any dealson skiing I'm game.

Let it snow!

Who Knows How Words Are Formed.

2011-11-26T00:16:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm full of turkey goodness, and there's a nice breezecoming in the window. But, before I start thinking of sugar plums and mangers,I want to reflect a little more on the great things that have happened in thelast few days of which I'm grateful.

1) I'm grateful forcold weather. Without the cold, sitting cozy with a blanket and a cup ofStephen's Gourmet French Vanilla wouldn't mean nearly as much! All of my winterjackets and sweaters would be obsolete. And, seeing the world pure and whiteright after a good snowfall would be nonexistent.

2) I'm thankful for jobs that aren't the best. Sure I mayget yelled and cussed at a lot while I talk on the phones. I may sound like adrone answering the phone with the same phrase day after day, but at least I'mnot scooping up poo. Also, I look forward even more to the time where I can besitting in my own practice giving sight to the blind.

3) I'm grateful for tools, jerks, and punks. Hey, someonehas got to make the good guys look good. We may not get noticed as much, but Ifeel we're just gaining more and more brownie points to get the best of thebest.

So, this thanksgiving I find myself really finding the bestin everything. I don't mean to complain, I just want people to know it's notthe end. Have fun. You only live once, so live high and righteously. Life wouldbe so boring if we had all we wanted. Really, who knows what's in store for us.I'm so glad I can't learn it all at once, because then I get to keep learning.If you keep looking down, then you miss all the stars above. Stop being grumpyand just enjoy what you have!

After all, there's only 28 more sleeps till Christmas!!

Old Friends

2011-09-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I was reacquainted with a new friend. One I had missed for quite some time. Almost two years to be exact. A real top notch pal. The kind who always makes you feel good no matter what your mood.After a grueling weekend of studies and more studying of the complicated eukaryotic and prokaryotic world, my friend really made my weekend and helped me see that there is more to life than simply studying. Who could have guessed that I would be reunited with him so soon? I didn't even expect it when I called on him late Friday night. Yet I found myself at 11:00 pm going to the Creamery on 9th to meet up again. I only know a few people that don't get a long with him, and that's not really their fault for having a medical condition. Everyone else though can't resist the dark complexion, smooth personality and of course the delicious taste.Oh Creamery Chocolate Milk, how I've missed you!

Summer is here!

2011-06-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight I found myself watching the Taylorsville dayz firework show from my roof. It's one of the best parts of living where we are, we can watch all the neighboring city do their fireworks, from our own roof.
Well the warm summer night and the flashing lights got me thinking of some past 4th of July experiences. Here are a few to note.
Childhood-
I remember always watching Dad set off the pack of fireworks he bought from Macey's. Of course I always wanted to light it and then when I did I found it it's still just as exciting if you don't have to light it. I also remember my sister would be watching it from her room cause she didn't like the loud noises, we kept telling her she was the loud noise.
Of course there were always the home-made ones. Competing against the neighborhood kids as to who could have the loudest M80. Plus we can't forget the giant one, MOAHB what a beauty.
You can't forget the family trip back east. I don't remember the fireworks as much as I remember trying to get back to the car. The minute the last fire work finished burning, the heavens opened and unleashes one of the most powerful rainstorms I've ever experienced. That's why I remember trying to get back to the car before we all got hypothermia.
High School-
Some of the best dates I've been on include watching the Murray Fireworks cuddled up next to a girlfriend. Of course it got a little scary when a nearby tree caught on fire.
Mission-
My first 4th of July was spent in the MTC. We had the "great opportunity" to watch the presidency put on a play about the founding fathers getting their temple work done. The acting was average, so the story saved the show. Afterwards some 3000+ missionaries stood outside the MTC trying to catch a glimpse of the nearby fireworks. My group mainly just played ninjas.
For the one in the field it was about the same as the MTC. Our apartment was too short to really see any fireworks, all we saw was a colorful glow in the sky. We did have fun with some glow sticks in the apartment.
Future-
Who knows what the rest of my 4th's will be like. I hope one time I get to play a night game where the whole baseball diamond is lit up by fireworks. Just a little bucket wish addition.
I'm excited also to see what this year and next bring. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
All and all I realized today that summer has come. Fireworks, yard work, and hamburgers and hot dogs. All accompanied with Giants baseball. What a great time of year!
What do you remember?

Home

2011-06-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it's done. I can't believe it but I have finished the best 2 years. It was incredible. I see that my parents posted some of my letters here, well they only describe half if that, of what I experienced. If you want the whole story your going to have to ask me. I'd love to tell you!

My parents decided to shock me back into te world by taking me on a week long cruise to Mexico! Personally I think they were just using me for my spanish. Well I had a blast! And well, the stage couldn't keep me away for too long cause on the last night on the boat I was in costume, singing and dancing as... James Brown! A small white kid playing a black guy. There's a first for everything.

As far as now, it's getting on with normal grown up life. I got a job a week after I got back. I do customer service for Propay. Some calls I even take in spanish! I'll be starting school in August. Hopefully starting the journey to become an Optometrist (eye doctor). So in the meant time. I'm looking for a car! I never thought finding a car would be this tough! I'm a little nervous cause the loan is in my name. Which means I actually have to become a responsible adult! Bleh!

Well that's it for now. Pictures coming soon!

2010-06-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

Well it has been quite the interesting week here at beautifil beach city Malaga Cove. (The city is actually Torrance, Redondo Beach, and Lomita, but the area is Malaga Cove)

Last monday we had a great dinner/ FHE. It was with the Zimmerman family and the French Family. Bro. French is somewhat investigating the church and has been for awhile. We listened while Sis. Zimmerman talked about CTR and what it stands for. It was really just an oppurtunity to show Bro. French how the gospel is made for the family. After that we checked a less active who actually answered the door and let us in! She had been out of town for a few months and that why neither of us really knew her. The coolest part was when she started talking about the eye disease she has. I don't remember what it's called but she told us of how she has a plastic cornea, and take chemo-drops. I loved listening to her describe the procedures and stuff the doctors had to do. I think I'll be an optometrists just so I can fix mine and her eyes.

Tuesday was pretty good, we did some tracting in the morning but didn't have a whole lot of success. Then we had our lunch appointment with Sis. Duffin. Somehow we started talking about my eye doctor and she was describing where her doctor's office was (cause he's a member) and she said something about Yogurtland and E. Garrett got really excited. Neither of us had been there but had heard that it was a really really really good frozen yogurt place. So when she found out we hadn't been she gathered her kids and car keys and took us. E. Garrett has gone everyday since. Not me cause I had splits, but it is really good. There's only two in the mission and we are lucky to have one in our area. So after yogurt and candy on top, we walked down to have a lesson with Robert & Rita. This was at the Villar home. What a great lesson! We set a baptismal date with them for August 29th. We are now trying to keep them excited about it up until them. We had them write it down and promise they are going to write it on their calenders and everything.

Wednesday we had to do our weekly planning cause we had Zoneconference on thursday, so we didn't have as much time as usual during the day since weekly planning takes 3 hours. However we still got some good done. We had a little scare at dinner, well not even a scare just a funny story. Sis. Bluemel asked us to do the tea bag lesson, but we didn't have any tea bags on us. So she goes and gets her own, which were huge! Anyway we do the lesson as usual and Elder Garrett held it in his hand. Usually we ask whoever were teaching to hold it, this time for some reason I asked E, Garrett. So we light it on fire and watch it burn. If all is right it's supposed to fly up in the air before the flame hits his hand. I don't know if it was the tea bag or just bad luck but it didn't fly up and soon Elder Garrett was getting the flaming bag off his hand as soon as possible. Luckily nothing was burned, except his hand was a little red. It was pretty funny and I'm sure Sis. Bluemel wont let us forget it. I pack tea bags in my bag now, and they are the kind I know will work.

After all there's only 4 more sleeps 'til Christmas... Day

2009-12-22T08:48:00.001-08:00

That's the Muppet Christmas Carol song if anyone didn't catch that.

First things first... Investigators!

I think I told you about Jose last week. Wow! Jose is so prepared to hear the gospel. He did throw some curveball's here and there but so far, he should have his interview on saturday or sunday! He's been one of the best investigators any missionary can ask for. Here's an example why, we went by his house this morning to teach him the 3rd lesson with the 10 commandments. (3rd is Faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost and endure to the end) We get ther and he had not only read Alma 32 which talks of faith, but he had gone on the church website and looked up "the gospel of Jesus Christ" and when we got there this morning he had the entire thing mapped out with questions on the sides answered with BOM scriptures. Like "what is faith?" and he wrote Alma 32, and a Mosiah scripture. SO COOL!! We're going by and teaching him every day so he can still get baptized the 30th. I know president said we would see miracles in December but I never expected anything like this. So awesome the people the Lord has prepared for us to meet. He's pretty much teaching us!

Guadalupe and Marco are still as solid as ever. They had some questoins on the word Apostasy the other day. Oh yeah they got that question cause they were reading the Gospel Principals book. They are just about the coolest mexicans I know. It was really fun we went with them to the Ward Christmas Party and just ate and talked for a while. Marco and I started talking about our most memorable Christmas, he alsmost got teary eyed, It was really cool. I felt like he really opened up and just let me see the real him. They've had so many big aswesome chasnges in their lives with the gospel, I love the power it has to bless those willing to seek for truth!

We set a baptismal date with Yanira, I dont' know if I talked much about her, we had tracted into her and later her boyfriend joined the lesson. He ended up not being interested but she still was. She's a Mother of 3 but all 3 are still in El Salvador while she tries to earn money here in America for them. They all want her to come back but she wants them to come here. She's really curios about the Book of Mormon and really wants to know it's true. The problem is getting her to do what she said she'll do. She'll read, it's the coming to church that's hard. Other then that she's doing great!

Tito, pues, Tito was a referall. He says "puess" every other word... you think I'm exagerating. "Pues" is a filler word like "well". Anywho, he is really smart and know a lot. I just don't think he listens very much, or if he does he's having troubles connecting the dots. We still committed him to baptism and I hope he goes through with it, we haven't been able to contact him in awhile though so I hope it wasn't just a one or two time thing with him.

Nancy and Maria, we tracted into them this week and they turned out to be really really interested. She read and prayed about the Book of Mormon and got... somewhat of an answer. She's still caught up on the fact that Joseph Smith saw God. She keeps saying that God is so powerful that nobody can see him. We tried to show her other prophets like Moses talked with God face to face, but she still isn't 100 % sure on it. I think it will disolve when her testimony of the Book of Mormon gets stronger. Her and her Mom Maria are really awesome though. The other night we were going over to teach them and saw the Mom outside working on the car, we stopped by and asked to help but she was just waiting on her husband but we did get to help with some yard work. So we were raking leaves and she was still waiting by the car, she comes over to us and askes us if we would say a prayer with this drunk guy who started talking to her. He comes over and starts telling us how bad he feels, how he feels like Gods trash and that God never would listen to him. He was really wasted. So knelt down in his driveway, Elder Thiriot gave a great spanish prayer, then it took another 20 minutes to get him off and on his way. I don't know if it helped him but the situation really just put us in the right mood. After the prayer we had a good spirit and had a great lesson with Nancy and Maria. Still want to know more before they commit to baptism but I think they are well on there way for it. I can't wait to see them baptized, I just know it will make their lives so much happier. They're a great family already, and I know the gospel can only make things better for them.

Well with all that, we only had Jose, Guadalupe and Marco show up to church. Just means we gotta keep working harder!

So... I get to call on friday!! I did get some more information on that. Since you didn't really tell me any time I'm guessing anytime will be fine with you. I can only call after 7 here so that will be sometime after 8 there. So that's when you can expect my call, sometime between 8 and 830. I only have 45 minutes but I'm excited.

That's about it, I'm sending a little package with some dumb things in it. Not a lot though cause I don't have much to send. I'm sending it today though so you probably won't get it for Christmas.

Other then that I'm floored that Liz is engaged, sorry to hear that linda passed away, and proud of my older sister clearing up a lot about the church with her co-workers, that makes our job as missionaries a lot easier, especially when they know we don't worship Joe with our 6 wives. :)

Well, I'll talk to you on Friday!!

Elder Groves

More and more and more rain. 12/15/09

2009-12-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

It's been coming pretty good here. I think Elder Thiriot and I finally figured out a good way to waterproof everything in our bags so they get ruined and un readable.

Had some good lessons this week. Thursday we had a return appointment with a girl we tracted into named Linda. She didn't have much of a religeous background, which is wierd here cause usually everyone wants to tell you everything they know, but the lesson went really well. We topped off thursday night with a lesson on obedience and prophets to Guadalupe and Marco. We didn't get much teaching done because the members we brought ended up talking a lot, but it was really good because Guadalupe and Marco really needed some friends other then us. Especially since their baptismal date is so far away.

Friday was a lot more tracting in the rain, plus I've been sick with a cold (probably due to the rain) and a stomach ache. There aint a chance I'm gonna let it keep me off the streets! So we tracted and had some really good lessons. Especially with Jose. We set a baptismal date with him for the 29th of December. Also, he came to church!! Whoot! Only for 2 hours but we'll work on the third. He had to run to work. That's the big thing we gotta work out tonight.

Also on friday night we had a Christmas Fireside at the Mission home. Bro and Sister Blackburn and our (english stake in my area) Stake president spoke. It was really good, a great talk on the atonement and some good food. Elder Thiriot and I tried to sing "O Holy Night" It didn't go as well as we had planned but still pretty decent.

Saturday we tried to talk to everyone to make sure they were coming to church. I think 4 of the 7 or so came. So it actually turned out really well. Still have a lot of work to do especially if we're to have a baptism by the end of the month.

Yesterday was Zone Conference and it lasted the whole day practically! When we got home we had an hour to work then we had to be home for the night. It was one of the best ZC's I've had so far. A lot on spiritual and personal efforts. President Blackburn gave an awesome talk on the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost. Sister Blackburn told a Christmas story called "May God Bless your way" it was really good.
After all the training we had a big Christmas Feast! We even had roast beast! After the dinner there was a little Christmas Program, Santa even came. President Blackburn read The Grinch and gave us all a really nice keychain of the CLAM. A really good night to bring in the Spirit of Christmas, I just wish I had a voice to sing the Christmas Hymns.

That's about it for this week. Still pushing and working hard, going to work even harder after Zone Conference. Transfers are coming pretty soon, the 23rd, which makes it really hard for those missionary's getting transfered to a new area two days before Christmas. I think Edler Thiriot and I will stay though, I'm not too worried.

Enjoy the snow!

Elder Groves

You had snow... we had rain. 12/9/09

2009-12-22T08:46:00.000-08:00

First off, sorry. I forgot to tell you its Temple P-day, so that's why you're getting this on Wednesday.

There is so much to say! What a week and a half!! To make sure I don't miss anything I'll go by day.

Tuesday the 1st:
Elder Thiriot went on splits with our district leader in his Area, so it was me and his trainee Elder Davis for tuesday. Well we didn't get a lot of work done on account that Elder Davis got some kind of Stomach bug and was confined to his bed all day. So Elder Thiriot and Elder Clark took the scheduled appoitments we had that day and I got caught up on my BOM reading. I don't know if I told you but the mission is trying to read the BOM and the New Testament before December ends. So I sat in and read all day while Elder Davis slept off his sickness. Also what happened tuesday was that Christian and Jasmine had their baptismal interviews. About an hour before we had them scheduled the mom calls me. We have had a hard time getting the mom to be supportive of her kids getting baptized. I talked to her for an hour on the phone and convinced her to let the kids be interviewed. She hates me now, but they were interviewed. She wasn't there for the interview so she couldnt sign the form saying it's ok for us to baptize them.

Wednesday 2nd:
Did a lot of tracting, with little success. A lot of riding too, If I did gain any wieght, it's gone now. Tried to go by Christian and Jasmine to get the mom to sign the paper, but no one was home.

Thursday 3rd:
A lot more tracting, some return appointments, some less actives who still aren't very interested. Tried Christian and Jasmine, no bueno.

Friday 4th:
We wake up, do our studies, then half way through our language study we have to go to the store to get some immodium and some gatorade because Elder Thiriot is sick and we will be in the apartment all day. I read from the beginning of Jacob to the middle of Alma within those three days. Elder Clark and I try to stop Christian and Jasmine, still no answer.

Saturday 5th:
Elder Thiriot is up and running and we're both eager to get some work done. First thing, GET THE PAPER SIGNED!! We got some luck this time and found Rosa, the mom, home. We talked to her on the porch, she told me she didn't like me, actually wouldn't talk to me for the first few minutes and made her some translate because Elder Thiriot's spanish isn't that great yet. We told her that Missionary's have been coming by for months now and there isn't anything else we can teach the kids. She still didn't think they were ready for baptism. So we said if they don't get baptized, we don't come over cause we are on the lords time and need to be teaching the people ready to do his will. She said fine and that she'll still take them to church and everything. So we dropped C&J, the day before their baptism.

Sunday 6th:
Church was good, Guadalupe came and her husband!!! They also came to the Christmas Devotional with us that night and watched Lilia ( the referral I had from Compton) get baptized. Guadalupe really liked the baptism and the devotional. Then we went finding for the rest of the night.

Monday 7th:
You had snow, we had rain. All day. Lots of it too. Cold rain. On bikes. Wet. Cold. Hard.
My rain jacket and sweater work really good. Just that I think I lost a couple fingers and toes. I'm suprised I'm not sick from Monday. We tracted most of the day in the rain. One of the last doors we knocked on was a guy named Jose. In his mid 20's from mexico. We didn't even say what we were doing and he let us right in. He said he had been praying all night the night before that God would send him some one to teach him the word. He knew that we were answers to his prayer. He had a lot of questions, we had a little bit of time. So we answered as many as we could and set up an appointment for the next day.

Tuesday 8th:
Did some good tracting with some good success. Met with Jose, who still had a lot of questions and really liked to talk. It was hard to get controll of the conversation but when we did it was really good! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he told us when he knows it's true then he'll need to be baptized. He just needs to come to church and then he's practically wet.

So this week has been pretty crazy. The last couple days have been pretty cold. I don't know if it's just cause I'm already used to California weather but it's been pretty cold here lately. We had a good day at the temple today, a little scary half way through our session when the lady in the head couple passes out at the alter. She hit her head on the alter and on the floor when she went down. They brought up a wheel chair and she's going to be fine. Apparently she had been sick, still not something you usually see during an endownment session.

I got that it's starting to look more like Christmas in Utah. I see decorations, we sing songs, but it still doesn't feel like christmas until there is snow. So could you just send some our way. It's kinda sad the only Christmas Decorations we have are a nativity Elder Thiriot's parents sent, and a Santa in a Jet Airplane throwing out gifts. (The airplane is my favorite) Don't worry, you'll get my SD card soon Mom.

Well that's about it for this week. We got a lot of follow up appointments for next week with some promising people. We're working hard, but so is the advisary. Hopefully the spirit of the season will help us out.

I love you all and hope you enjoy the snow for me!

Elder Groves

Turkey day for the homeless

2009-12-03T14:02:00.000-08:00

The week started with a lot of ups and went down from there.

To start off, Elder Thiriot and I had to go to the mission home on tuesday. I spent the night monday trying to get us a ride there, turns out practically everyone had already teamed up. I guess I missed the boat. So we biked it! Before leaving tuesday morning I asked around to find out the best route and the quickest way. I found one that I was told would take about 30 minutes on bike. We leave and head off on our journey. After many very hard hills to ride up and an hour later we finally arrive at the mission home, dripping with sweat. We go in and get some good training. Luckily we were able to find a ride home, but it was a nice adventure to begin the week.

We finished that day by dropping the Rodelo family. Turns out she's only letting us in every time because her mom sent us over. She's actually been going to another church and like it better. We asked her to keep reading and call us when she knows it's true. I think some other Elders in a few months may have some better luck with them.

Then for dinner that night we went to visit Noah and his family. Noah is awesome!! He's a recent convert of less then a year and he's the only member of his family. He has the missionary's over for dinner every week in hopes that they can start teaching his family. It seems like this family has been hit with the gospel a lot, so we decided rather try and shove it down their throats we'd rather build a lot of trust first. I don't think it will be that difficult considering they whole family is way into music and especially choir music. I plan to bring some of the new sheet music mom sent to see what they think. Right now they go to a catholic church, I think Noah goes to both so he can keep his family together.

We've had a lot of daily contact with Christian and Jasmine, which has turned out to be really good. They will be having their baptismal interview tomorrow! We had a really good lesson with them on sunday, yesterday, and their mom was there. The mom is still a little anti-baptism. She kept saying they don't know enough to make a big decision. The good thing is that she will still let them be baptized. Well she left it up to them and they said "I'm getting baptized, and I'm proud of it!" Awesome!! They also came to the baptismal service, with their mom! They were all excited showing her all the different rooms where they have class on sunday and everything. I hope the mom will see how the gospel has changed her kids and finally feel that she needs it too.

Thanksgiving was a great day... ish. We started by doing a service project. We made T-shirts, with a 3 nephi reference talking about looking to to christ and enduring to the end. We had that on the front and painted stuff on the back. My three included the following:
"We've got all the answers!"
"Have a blessed day! 'The Mormons'"
"Got Sheep? We do!" John 10:16 3 Nephi 12

Then after making them we handed them out to the Homeless on skidrow. That was pretty fun. I had a homeless guy guess that I was from Salt Lake City Utah. After that we helped a family move out of our area to Elder Amundsens area... thieves! We had to cancel our first dinner appointment though cause the moving took longer then we thought. It's ok, it was only a pitty appointment. We had a second dinner appointment with the Ortega Family and Elder Clark (my DL) and his companion Elder Davis. We had to get special permission to have more then one companionship at the dinner but it was fun. We had Mole that was so good! So kinda a different Turkey day, since I didn't have any turkey. Still very enjoyable.

The rest of the week goes down hill from there. We had to drop a lot of people, Elder Thiriot's back light got stolen on his bike, and we didn't have a single investigator with a baptismal date come to church. Victor was never there for his appointments, we got special permission from the AP to wake up at 2 in the morning to call him and remind him of church. (he gets home from work at that time) He told us he's been studying for a test, so we told him when he's done and has read the Book of Mormon, to give us a call.

Miguel, we had a discussion with Miguel but it was more like with his wife. She finally said she would come to our church... they didn't. Also they stood us up on our appointment, which is like the third time. So we wrote a kind note saying that our time is precious and to call us when they are ready to do the things necesarry.

We also tried to set a date with Guadalupe again but they don't even want to get married til January. We gave them Alma 4 to read, which says don't procrastinate the day of your repentance, and told them we would come back on monday to see how it went. and if they didn't read, we can't come over. Crazy things this week! The thing is Guadalupe was the only one who came to church! It's her husband that doesn't want to get married. She wants it, just doesn't want to go over her husband to get it.

That's it for me, I'm glad to hear you had a great Turkey day! I hope everyone ate a lot of stuffing for me! I'm very happy to hear the result of the BYU game. Word around the mission is that now they play USC? If that's so, the stadium is just south of my area! They had a USC and UCLA game the other day and from what I hear, every street withing 5 blocks were packed!

Christmas season is approaching, and sad to say, I don't have very many Christmas CD's. Just you know, putting that out there, in case you were wondering... yeah....

I love you all! I'm glad to hear all is going well at home. Keep up the prayers. This time we gotta pray for more investigators to teach! Thank you som much!

Love, Elder Groves!

Week 2!

2009-11-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

And we're off!
Things have really started to pick up around here in LA. we now have 5 investigators with baptismal dates!

Christian and Jasmine:
We have been doing a lot of daily contact with them to get them to be prepared for december 6th. We have been working hard, and so far so good. We had a lesson with them on sunday and it went really well. I just wish the Mom could have the same excitement they do about their baptism. We're working with it though. They didn't come to church yesterday because of family problems. Other then that they seem to be well on their way to a white December! Their date is Dec. 6th.

Miguel:
I don't know if I told you much about Miguel but he is a referral we recieved. His wife and Mother-in-law are members and his wife really wants to be sealed in the temple. He's kinda a laid back guy, but he does want to get baptized. His date is for the 13th of December. The only thing with him is that he goes to a ward outside the Mission. They are supposed to go to our ward, Barrio 6th, but they have been going to a ward in Glendale for years and don't want to leave. I'm gonna talk to president about it and get his opinion on what we should do.

Victor:
He is a man in his 20's that the other Elders have been working with. It took a while but we finally got in touch with him. He's really willing and wants to be baptized. He has yet come to church though. The other Elders even gave him a shirt and tie, still hasn't come. He's a difficult man to contact, but when we do he's solid!

Valeria:
She's a 10 year old sister of 2 recent converts in the ward. She wants to get baptized but doesn't want to put the effort into reading and going to church. Her mom isn't that great of an example, she's a less active from equador who loves the missionaries but doesn't come to church. I think Valeria has the idea that if Mom doesn't go she doesn't need to. Ugh! She is the most frustrating one yet!

The Rodelo Family:
Daily contact is what is going to save this family. Our first lesson with them was Elder Thiriot's first day. It was one of the hardest lessons! They are a very quite family. However, we've learned a lot about them and really have got them to open up since we've seen them everyday. Come to find out, the mom can't be sitting for too long or she gets sick. That's why when they come to church they only come for sacrament meeting. They are a really good family though, with lots of potential! We just need to become their best friends so they are willing to make the sacrafices to see the blessings.

Guadalupe, Marco Antonio & Tony:
This week we're going to make some big headway on getting them married. They both want to do it, we just need to help them get it done!
We tried to set a marriage date, but they want to talk to the bishop first. I know that once they are married, they will be ready for baptism. She is really excited, him on the other hand is a little hesitant. She even asked us if she could get baptized with out him. Sure as long as she's married. We taught Law of Chastity this week, it was one of the least awkward Chistity lessons I've seen. They set up a time for the Bishop on Tuesday.

Other then that we've been booked with potential, doing a lot of daily contact with each Investigator and teaching some less actives. We haven't had a lot of time tracting which is really good. We are definately a lot more busy here then I ever was in Willowbrook.

For Thanksgiving, we're having 2 dinners. One American (so I can get my turkey and taters!) and then one Hispanic. I don't really know what to expect at the Hispanic dinner.

I don't know if I explained our Area well last time so I'll give it another go. Olympic down to Venice, until it hits the 110 freeway, then it goes to washington. And Wester to Alameda. It's a lot of apartments and it's actually a big area, but we only work half of it. We have the Staples Center (where the Lakers play) and the LA Convention center. Plus parts of the "The Alley". It's 90% Hispanic which I love!!

We had a really fun Turkey Bowl today, with some other zones in the mission. Ironically, every game tied.

Anywhoo that's all for this week, I'm about to be booted off.

I love you all! I loved the Scary Dinner pics, I think the Garden Gnome takes the cake, after the Brindle of course ;)

Pray for these investigators, pray that we can get them to church! Thank you miss you, love you!

Elder Groves

"Que hace un pez? Nada!!"

LA 6th Downtown!!

2009-11-16T14:48:00.002-08:00

Cheerio family!
I say Cheeerio because my new companion is from England!! He is an American Citizen though. His name is Elder Thiriot (Theory-ought, or ut) He is awesome! He loves to just get out there and get busy. That's why I felt so bad yesterday cause I accidently locked us out of the apartment, and we had to spend an hour trying to pick the lock, open windows, call the mission home. Come to find out, our neighbor has a spare.
We are in LA 6th Downtown. Our northern border is, Olympic. Our southern border is Venice, until the 110 then it drops to washington. Our western border is... western. I don't know the name of our eastern most street. Sorry, I think it might be the border of the Mission but I don't know. I'll let you know next week. We do have the Staples Center and part of "The Alley" in my area. We rode by it the other night and saw all the Laker fans going around in their yellow jersey's that say Kobe, Luckily we don't have a lot of work that far east. Your christmas presents will all be from the alley though! ;) It's hard flush training! I have no idea where I am and I have to be perfect doing it. A lot of pressure, good thing my Greenie and I get a long. The people here are really great though, a great place for Elder Thiriot to start his mission. It's mostly spanish, infact the Elders before us didn't even have one english investigator, so that means we both are going to be learning a lot of spanish! It's total bike and I love it! I feel nice and exhausted at the end of the day, which practically gaurantees a good nights rest.
We set two baptismal dates this week, Christian and Jasmine, they ar 15 and 12 I think. We met them and set a date, they actually have had all the lessons and a date before but the mom didn't feel like they were ready to make the commitment. So we told her we'll set a date, teach all the lessons again. She was good for that.
We also have Gaudalupe and Marco, we tried to set a date with them but they weren't as excited. They kept saying they weren't ready. Tried and tried convincing them but to no avail. We did set a goal to get them married. Infact Gaudalupe came to church on sunday, and the bishop had a meeting with all the investigators. She came out beaming and said that she has an appointment with the bishop tuesday to get started on the marriage process. WoooHoo! Way to go Obispo Estrada!!
We're trying to see if we can get some investigators from some lpart member family's, and of course a lot of tracting. There is a lot of work here in this area. The field is white (or more like brown cause you don't find many white people besides missionaries) and all ready to baptize!!
Cool story, So we tracted into a guy who had had the discussions in El Salvador, we talked to him a little about that and then tried to set up a return appointment. He was not willing to set up a return appointment, then somehow we got talking about him and family and him looking for a job, normal stuff, we related it back to the gospel and how Family is center in God's plan. He had turned right around, we set up an appointment and as we were leaving he repeated the time and said he would be waiting cause he has a lot of questions. I think people just see the tag and don't know that we are people and talk about normal things. We just know why we do the normal things and where were going when we do the good things. I dunno maybe you just had to be there but I thought it was one of the best tracting contacts I've had so far.
Well I guess this E-mail is long enough, I've blabbered on and on so I will now go back home so I can switch my laundry. Sorry I didn't get any pictures this week, I'll send a few next week to show you how LA 6th Downtown is all about!

I love you, take care of that beautiful snow that is falling, play in it lots for me!!

Love, Elder Groves!

Transfers! 11/9/09

2009-11-16T14:48:00.001-08:00

Where I go nobody knows! Just follow your nose! or maybe not. I tried to send some pictures, but it kept kicking me off, when I'm done with this letter I'll try again.
Transfers have arrived! I'm leaving. I'm heading to downtown! I'm going to be in what's called the LA 6th Area. I'll be on total bike! Plus! I'm going to be the lead companionship of Barrio Sexcto, or 6th ward. My area as far as I can tell is going to be majority spanish, that I'm way excited for! I hope it's a long good while before I get called to an English area. The area itself is just south of "The Alley" I don't know the exact borders but I'll let you know next week. I can tell you that the Staples Center is in my area, that will be interesting. So that is transfers... almost. My new companion is going to be, well I don't know yet. I'll meet him on wednesday when he comes in from Provo. So I'm going to be flush training downtown, with a lot of spanish. Pray for me. It's pretty exciting, I'm way ready for something new and new challenges and I know it will definately be challenging. Elder Oswald is leaving too, he's just going north of our area, they are opening a new area there and so he'll stay in the apartment that we're in now but drive to his area everyday. So our area will be flushed, which is too bad cause we just got a crazy cool new investigator.

Her name is Lilia, she was a referrall Elder Amundsen and I got but couldn't contact cause she was in Tiajuana Mexico. I met have told you about her before, I don't remember. But she's way cool, I went over with a kid from the ward and taught her on wednesday. When we got there her Son-in-law was there. First thing he said to us was, "Hi, I'm Catholic" For the next 20-40 minutes he asked us all kinds of questions and tried to argue with us about our beliefs, saying were wrong because we believe this and stuff like that. I was scared for a little bit we had only taught Lilia once before and now she has to hear this. However the conversation soon turned to her defending us and saying the Catholics are wrong, she said stuff like we should only worship one God and things like that. It soon turned into an argument with jsut those two. She finally ended it by saying, "I'm looking for the right church, right now I'm studying with these guys, the Mormons, nothing you can say will change that." WOOOHOOO!! Go Lilia! So we taught her a first, committed her to watch the Restoration DVD and committed her to come to church on sunday. But the story doesn't end there.

We give her a call on sunday to reminds her of church, we call around 8 and church starts at 930. She said she was up and already getting ready, also said that during the week she went and found the church so she could find it again on sunday. She must have gone to church right after that cause she beat us there. After all the meetings she came up to me and said she wanted to go see the baptism that was going on tonight, not expecting her to say that we unfortunatley had an appointment, that didn't stop her. She went anyway. We get a call later that night from another Elder saying that he was talking to Lilia at the baptism and she was telling him how much she liked it and that she wanted to get baptized, so he set a date with her for Dec. 6th. How crazy is that! She committed herself to baptism!! I love this work! We have an appointment with her tomorrow so we can get started, then the new Elders will have to take over. So cool though! It makes me feel that all the work I've done in this area with tracting and finding has finnaly paid off.

Well that seems to be all I have time for this week, I'll let you know all about "Mi Hijo" next week. Until then, stay strong, stay true, and keep praying! Love you all!

Elder Groves

Hallow-boring! 11/2/09

2009-11-16T14:47:00.001-08:00

Yeah, it was a pretty boring Halloween. We had to be in at 6 and couldn't leave the apartment the rest of the night. We cleaned and ate the Halloween candy Mom sent. Other then that it was a pretty normal day.
On monday we had a fun Noche De Hogar, we taught about the war chapters in the Book of Mormon and had people be the mounds of dirt and the timbers and towers that Moroni made to protect his city (the city was someone sitting in the middle) so the Lamanites (Anthony and Sergio) couldn't attack with arrows and stones (paper airplanes and paper balls). They loved it, as did we doing it. Alma 49 and 50 if your interested. We related it to how we have to protect ourselves by reading scriptures attending church, and so forth. If one of those fail, our city and families are in danger.
Tuesday night I went on splits in Watts. That rocked pretty hard core! I was with my DL's greenie who felt bad because all our appointments were falling through, we got some good contacts tracting though.
Wednesday was Zone Conference, that was pretty cool. I got to see a lot of Elders I hadn't seen in a while. President set a new challenge for next transfer, he calls it a "white" Christmas in LA. He wants every single companionship in the mission to have at least one baptism next transfer. Then in January after the transfer we're having a mission wide conference to evaluate. Pretty cool. I'm really really excited about it. Especially because everyone seems to think I'm going to be flush training next transfer, I won't know for sure til president starts making calls this weekend, so I'm not going to be saying anything. I do think I'll be transfered though. THey also talked a lot about obedience at ZC. My companion took it... good? When we got home that night he smashed both his guitars, threw away half his books and everything else he had been collecting. He was going crazy. It's a good thing. He's really stepped up his game.
We also had a lesson with Anthony, we wanted to teach him how he can recognize the spirit. We watched the restoration DVD and then taught him how the spirit feels. We had him go get his blanket, wrap it around him and describe to us how it felt. Then we had him take it off and ask Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith really was a prophet. After the prayer we asked how he felt, he couldn't believe it. He said he felt exactly like the blanket was on him. He was loving it! It was so cool to see the light bulb go on. That kid is going places!
Thursday we did a lot of finding, actually found some too! Made a few return appointments and taught Sergio, tried the blanket thing but he couldn't say a sincere prayer. He just kept laughing. Oh well maybe it's not for everyone.
Friday was car free day, no one in the mission was alowed to use a car. We had an appointment with Keri, but she wasn't there and we haven't been able to contact her since. We've tried everyday and will continue til we can find out what happend.
So, friday after dinner, we go outside to get our bikes and head up to a service project we had scheduled with the ward. Or bikes were gone. We walked to and fro looking for them, and they were no where to be seen. Finnaly a lady came up to us asking if we had put our bikes by a sign down the street, yes, she had one in her house but a Hobo took the other one. When she saw him take it she put the other one in her house to keep it from getting stolen. Mine was... in her house. My companion's bike got stolen by a bum. We had to bum a ride or walk the rest of the day. He's still mad about it, I'm just glad we never found the Hobo, cause I don't think I could stop my 300 lb companion from rippin him a new one.
Saturday was boring Halloween, it was fun to see little kids dressed up and having fun, and we did get a lot cleaned in our house. Cause it definatley needed it.
Sunday, oh sunday. We didn't have a great sunday. None of our investigators came to church. Granted, we only have two right now. IT seemed everyone's investigators were coming but ours. So we were feeling a little depressed and decided to skip english ward in the afternoon and go out and work. The first referral we looked up was Lilia. She was a really good lesson. She wants to know if it's true but... can't read. I really gotta figure out how to get past this obstacle, it's coming up a lot more then you'd expect in LA.
After Lilia we went to a baptismal service of the ward, which was a little depressing too. So tomorrow we're going to push hard to find those investigators that are just waiting!
I hope all is well, Mom told me a little about scary dinner but not much. I can't wait til pictures. I'll send some more pics home. That's it for this week, until then. Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon good evening and good night!

Love y'all!

Elder Groves

Weird... 10/26/09

2009-11-16T14:46:00.002-08:00

A lot of ... things happened this week. To start off we dropped Salvador. We asked him about his baptism and how he felt... come to find out he didn't know that the Book of Mormon is true. So we left him to read and pray about it. He said he did... at 3 in the morning after he came back from Knotts berry Farms, and said God has something for him just not right now. Sad but if he's not ready we're wasting the Lords time. Hopefully some other Elders will pick him up and start teaching again. Kinda like we did with Rosio.
We had a great lesson and re-established her testimony in the Book of Mormon. I think Salvador kinda woke us up on some of the fundamentals, then last night went and taught her about the plan of Salvation and The Word of Wisdom... That's her stumbling block. She said she has drunk Cofee and Tea since she was little and doesn't see why it's bad. We tried telling her the only thing that matters is that God told us no. She didn't buy it. She did say she would give Shirley a call and ask her what she thinks. So at least she feels comfortable with the members we bring. She is going to come to Noche De Hogar tonight so maybe some of the people there can help her.
Keri... oh Keri.... Keri got into a car accident thursday night. She and Brooklyn are ok. She broke open her knee and has some staples in it. Brookyn got a couple of stitches in her forehead. We went by and visited friday, Keri can't walk very well but Brookyn seems to have more energy than the Energizer Bunny. So Keri didn't come to church this week and neither did Rocio. I know if we can get them to church, meet some other members, get them excited about being a member, then the road to baptism will be a lot easier. Church seems to be the problem with a lot of people. No wonder our Zone Goal is based around that. We need your prayers this week for these two to get to church!
Other then them we don't have any other investigators, we have a couple potentials but nothing really solid. We've had around 13 hours of finding/tracting this week. That's the most I've had in my mission so far. They're out there, we're just trying to get to them.
I heard about BYU, that stinks. It stinks so bad I can smell it from here! Go Phillies though! Even though I was a little partial to the Angels considering my location.
Halloween is this week, I think I'm going to be a missionary. We actually have to be in our apartments at 6 and can't leave. But we get to treat it as a P-day, write letters, clean, play guitar. We just can't leave our apartment nor give out candy, even if it's glued to a pass along card. I'm excited to get some pictures of Scary Night though! I'll send more pictures next week, I just gotta find what ones I want. Plus I'll send back the SD card.
The work is slowing, but we're doing our best not to. Pray, we could use the help. I love you all, enjoy the snow, I know I'm gonna miss it!

I learned this week from a guy off the street, Jesus lives in the sun, and there is a hidden military base in Compton. Think about that for a while...

Love you! Elder Groves!

Rain anyone? 10/19/09

2009-11-16T14:46:00.001-08:00

We had 2 almost 3 days of complete rain here! It was crazy, it just wouldn't let up. Which was a big bummer for me cause we couldn't go out and ride bikes. We've been doing that ALOT more, since our limit on our miles for the car got cut. It's ok, gives me more excercise! Plus I getta try out all the stuff on my bike, which I found out is pretty slow... oh well just makes me work harder!
A pretty wierd week this week, with the rain and all. I found my companion hates to tract, which is hard. We do a lot of tracting here, well more now then when I was with Edler Amundsen, but it puts us both in a downer mood. That with the gloomy weather has kinda made it a tough week.
I did get to go on splits with our DL Elder Tillman. He's one of the best missionary's. I really learn so much from him, I'm glad we did it when we did cause it gave me a boost to get things rolling in my area with my companion.
Our investigators are ... doing. Still church is the big problem. So far we've only had Salvador come the last 2 weeks. We had do drop Oscar and Janet cause we just can't get time to teach them, plus they aren't coming to church. We tried to set a Bap date with Keri, she was really really hesitant. She would tell us what she needs to do but is still really scared about making the change. With a lot of help from the lord we got one! I still feel she's pretty shakey about it though. Plus she's never been to church, she was supposed to even come to a baptismal service but didn't show! I've grown to love these people, and I wish they could see how the gospel will bless their lives in ways they can't tell right now. They just need to show a little faith!
On splits Elder Oswald taught Rocio, and got a baptismal date! WooHoo! Now we have to figure out how to get her to church so she can get baptized.
Salvador told us he isn't ready for baptism, he totally is though. He just said he has some more questions to iron out, but I think he wants to know everything before he gets baptized, which is not going to happen.
Other then that we've been tracting and working on some potentials that we found in our Area book. The works going... slowly but surely.
On other news, we've been asked to look for an apartment in our area. Which means it pretty likely that our area gets split this transfer. I never thought it would be this hard to find an apartment around here, with all the people moving out. The trouble is finding one SMALL enough. With this searching and the fact that President told me at Interviews that a lot of the people from my transfer are going to become seniors and trainers soon, a lot of the other Elders (especially my companion) think I may be training this next transfer. I don't know about training but I think I could become senior. Anywhoo, off to work we go!
I love you all and miss you, pray for church attendance and that we can find some more people to teach!

Always remember... "Jesus loves Compton"

Elder Groves!

10-13-09 Candy?

2009-10-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

Hey family of man all across utah and the country!
This week has been quite the Roller Coaster. I didn't e-mail yesterday because the library was closed for Columbus Day, we didn't even know it was Columbus day til we tried going to the library. Missionaries are a little shelterd at times. Anywho, here I am today, alive, breathing and teaching the good news!
Last week was pretty interesting, We have had some great things come to pass, and Satan has won a few battles as well. To start out we taught the entire plan of Salvation to Keri, it was pretty quiet because her little 3 year old Brooklyn had fallen asleep. To give you a little bit about Keri, just think of a quiet Rena. We taught her and commited her to come to church. She called us around 10:00 sunday morning saying she wasn't feeling good so she didn't go to work... but she still coming to church and needed directions. WooHoo!! So we waited at church until about 1:15 then called her, she said her car broke down (overheated) and couldn't find a way to get there, but she also said nothing is going to stop her from coming this week. So its really good to see her desire to come to church. I know she has been so well prepared to recieve the gospel... even though it took 4 other missionaries to do it.
That's kinda what we are picking up on, playing a little clean up with the former investigators in the area, Because we taught another girl who I think 4 or 5 other companionships have taught, her name is Rosio. She has a 6 year old girl Ashley. We commited Rosio to baptism for the 8th of November. She couldn't come to church last week because she had to work, but we hope and plan to see her this week.
Salvador, he is the story of the week! We couldn't stop by on tuesday this week but we've been trying to daily contact him as much as possible, so we swung by to say hi on friday, he wasn't there but his brother was working on a bike. Come to find out Elder Oswald knows quite a bit about fixing bikes. So he took of his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and got tinkering! I sat and talked with his mom in spanish for awhile, it was a really good oppurtunity to meet the family and really let them know we're good guys. Who knows maybe we'll start teaching them sometime soon. We pray so! After tinkering and talking for awhile, Salvador shows up! So we talked with him for awhile, we set another baptismal date for the 25th. He really only has one more lesson to go, we asked him if he got to watch any of conference and he started talking about how passionate Elder Holland was! Booh Yeah!! On top of all this he came to church on sunday in a suit! He is getting serious about getting saved! I'm so stoked for the huge progress he's made this week. Pray that he can make even more the coming week so he can get baptized.
On a downer note, we had a good lesson with Oscar this week. We had arranged for a member to meet us there, but we were on bike and got about 20 minutes behind schedule. So we finnally get there and he and Hermano Jerez were just talking up a storm! They talked about scriptures, baptism, repentance, prayer.. almost everything! We had a really good lesson with him and set up a return appointment for Sunday... so where's the downer you ask? Saturday night comes around I give them a call for a reminder of church and... they say they can't cause they are taking the kids to the dentist. Dumb! Then on top of that they cancelled the appointment we had with them. I was so frustrated after that. We swung by yesterday and set up another appointment, if they don't keep anymore commitments they're going to be dropped until maybe some other missionaries can play clean up.
So a lot of up and downs this week. Also we've done a lot of finding work. Looking through our area book, we made a huge map of our area with colors and pins and the whole ten yards, we haven't found a lot but a little.
I did get to see one of the people I taught while I was in the trio get baptized yesterday, it was a really good service... but... we had to improvise a while because we filled the font too hot. Kinda funny that it was too hot this time and not too cold. When we asked Marie how it felt she just said it was a nice warm bath.
The work is going, my companion and I are trying our best to get along. We either have really good days, or really hard days. But maybe your right Dad, I'm just getting prepared for something. I just need to get through this transfer then we'll see what's after that mark. They might be splitting our area cause we have to look for another apartment in the northern part of our area.
I love you all, I thank you so much for your love and support. I wouldn't be able to do this without you.
Hasta luego!
Elder Groves

10/5/09

2009-10-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

That's my new comp. Elder Oswald. He's from American Fork and has 3 months left, he's already getting a little trunky. He's... well... interesting. He started the transfer saying... "There are a few things you need to know about me" that was at like, 10 am wednesday morning. We didn't get out and working til 3. I hope this goes by faster then I think it will. He's really cool at times and I'm impressed with some of the ways and tactics he uses while teaching. He is also very loud, very messy, and has anxiety and ADHD. It's going to be a very interesting transfer. I think Heavenly Father is testing my patience with this one. This is his second time being Senior companion, and he goes home in december.
Also he's testing me with my area. We had 3 people we wanted to see at church this week and all fell through. We did have a pretty good lesson with Salvador, we brought a member and her really seemed determined to follow through on everything we asked. We stopped by a couple days later un announced just to see how he's doing and all the fire and enthusiasm he had befor was gone. I called him saturday night to remind him about coming to church to watch a session of conference with us and he said he wasn't going to cause he had work. I kinda got frustrated and just told him that he needs to focus less on work and more on his spirituality. I hope he didn't get the wrong impression.
We've had a lot of hit and miss this week with all our investigators. It's tough, cause when I was with Elder Amundsen we were going nuts with all our investigators, now it's really slow and everywhere else is going crazy. I just pray for one baptism this transfer and I'll be happy.
Conference was awesome! It was a whole lot different sitting and watching it in a chapel rather then at home while dad makes breakfast. It still was really good and really powerfull. I can't wait til the Ensign comes out so I can learn it all again! Like I said we didn't have any investigators come, but if they did they would have heard exactly what they needed to hear. Everytalk I thought of one of our investigators who that talk would especially help. Luckily I could watch them all in english and the one spanish building we did go to were showing both. Had that not been the case I don't think I would have had learned as much as I did.
That's about it for this week, we didn't teach very many cause a lot cancelled, our area did change to a car/bike area so I'll be using my bike a lot more. I hope everyone enjoyed conference, it was fun to see some boys I recognized in the aaronic priesthood choir for priesthood session. I didn't see any from our ward though, what's up with that?! 66th we gotta represent!
I did try to attach some pictures this time 174 is at Edwin's baptism, 188 is the baptism of the two boys sergio in blue and anthony in the suit. 200 a sign we found at a church in our area, pretty rockin right?! 202 The Avila-Hernandez family, Elder Amundsen's last day in the area. They were a less active family we've been having Family Night with. She makes some Chile Rellenos that blow Gecko's out of the water! One of my favorite family's in the area.
I hope that explained them well enough. I hope all is well back home, it's starting to get cooler here, we have to wear our jackets every night after 6:00. Hasta luego!

Elder Groves

Transfers!! 9/28/09

2009-10-14T08:37:00.002-07:00

That's right transefer calls are being made! Elder Amundsen got one last night, before I tell you I'd like you to remember I "broke" him. He trained me on his 3rd transfer. So he's only known me and his trainer. President told him last night he was moving, and training, and becoming a District Leader. So he's pretty excited about that. He will be one of the youngest in the mission. Then again the whole mission is really young. As far as I know, I'm staying here, I don't know who my new companion will be but we we'll find out either tonight or tomorrow. Pretty exciting stuff.
This week has pretty good. We got Salvador to church yesterday! Yes!! We also had a really good lesson with him on tuesday. He's sorta on the right track. He doesn't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but keeps all the commitments we leave him, so we asked him to read JSH and to pray specifically about it. Leave everything else out. So we'll see what happens.
Dropped Stacy this week. That was pretty sad. She's one that when I come back to my mission in a lot of years, she's a relief society president or something. She would be so strong and needs the church!
We've pretty much dropped Bobbie too. We can never get in contact with her to follow up on a first.
Wednesday we had Zone Conference and Elder Pace from the 70 spoke. Awesome!!! So good! He told us to "become" something on the mission. I dunno if it was because we just were super stoked and pumped from Zone conference, but we went to a referral right after and taught a really really good lesson. Elder Amundsen wanted to set a baptisimal date, but I didn't feel it was right. We almost started discussing it right there. It would have been a good time, she understood everything but it just didn't feel right to me.We haven't met with her again since.
We did start teaching Burnedett, or Burnetta as she says. She is either currently or past user of drugs, and wants to turn her life around. She doesn't read. That is going to be the challenge. Our ward mission leader gave us a couple of the Living Scriptures DVD's that we could use with her, but other then that I don't know what kind of commitment we will be able to leave her.
We finally met with Oscar and Janet again! The lesson was SOO Good! Oscar kept asking questions about the right things at exactly the right time. Like Who's Joseph Smith and Why do we need the Book of Mormon. We commited them to be baptized the 25th of October. The only hard thing that we will have to face with them is getting time to teach them. He sometimes has a job and sometimes doesn't. When he does he goes to Orange County for 5 days to work. They have to sell things just to get gas so he can go. Times are tough with them. They really are interested and want to learn.
We haven't met with Keri this week, but we've talked on the phone a few times. We are going to see her tomorrow. She still is pretty excited and eager about learning, just some things with her daughter have popped up.
We've started teaching a former Investigator again. Her name is Rosio, we met with her and taught a first. She seems to be coming good. She's got a little girl that sits in on the lessons.
We had one of our two Music recitals yesterday. I sang a solo of I need thee every hour, it was really fun. It reminded me of doing theatre. Some of the Elders got a few referrals from it and we hope to get more tonight.
That's about it this week. Just pushin and working hard here in Compton. It's still really hot here! I just hope it cools down after Conference because after next week, we have to wear our suits after 6pm.
I saw the pictures of Arsenic Dad sent. The set looks so cool! Looks like you had a lot of fun building and putting on the show. Congrats on Fezziwig Dad!! That's so fun. Plus a solicitor. That was one of my favorite parts last year, cause I got to have fancy clothes for all of that. Plus I was bundled up a lot for the end of the show when we shook hands outside. Send me the cast list so I can tell you who I know. Tell John, and Marilyn, and Sally and all them I say hi!
I better get going, we still have lots of laundry and things to do. Until next week!
Elder Groves, over and out!

9/21/09

2009-10-14T08:37:00.001-07:00

Family of mine!
Hey, It's great to hear from y'all again. Sounds like everything is just rolling great! I definately want to see that painting of Grandpa. I also need a picture of Dad with his beard and long hair! Things are going pretty good hear. We've run into some hiccups. We can't seem to get anyone to church. A couple weeks ago, president told us to, unless the spirit says strongly "no", to commit baptism the first lesson. We've done that and have had a few yes's. The thing is, they don't come to church! We call them the night before, they're all good to go. Then we don't see them the next week. That family I told you about last week, who came to church after a tracting contact, we haven't seen them since. We've commited an older lady Bobbie, she didn't come to church. I don't know what is so scary about mormon church!! So that's what's frustrating me. We had stake conference this weekend, Elder Pace spoke. He's also going to speak at Zone Conference wednesday. He talked a lot about getting your own testimony. I think I needed to hear it to make sure that the people we are teaching have that. That they know that the church is true. That they know, Joseph Smith saw god and his son, and that through him the church was not "made" but restored.
Something crazy that happend this week, we go into an some elderly apartments about once a week, a less active and some investigators live there. Well one day we go in and some police walk up to us and ask us to help them out. Elder Amundsen had to reach through a window and unlock a door of a house cause the lady didn't have the strength to do it herself. So we did that, then went on our way. We came over about a day or two after to see that apartment black, and some repairmen working on lighting. Come to find out, that night after we had left. The lady had fallen asleep and a cigerette or something caught her apt. on fire. She had oxygen tanks so it caught pretty quick and she couldn't get out. That was a crazy shocker for us. We didn't know her at all but it still is pretty sad.
To lift your spirits now, we have 3 investigators with a baptismal date! Woohoo! I ask you all to pray they can follow the commandments and go to church so they can be baptized!
Our new convert, and new member are doing well. We will have Family night with the two boys and their families tonight. We're playing Jeapordy!
I don't know if I told you but one of the office Elders saw Allan at church and said he says hi. With Allan at that ward, he's keeping me out of the office for this next transfer ;) which is in a week. I'll probably stay here but Elder Amundsen is leaving... probably. It would be very strange if he stayed. With the Mission being so young there is a chance I could train, but I don't think my spanish is good enough for that.
That's about it for this week. A lot of work still left to do, a lot of baptism dates to set, a lot of people to teach. We definately have our hands full. We only got 2 hours of tracting in this week cause we have so many people to teach.
I love you all! I hope the lord continues to bless you, I know I've been. Talk to you next week!

Sept. 14

2009-10-14T08:35:00.002-07:00

Hey family of mine!!
Great week this week, thursday we went and looked up a former investigator that was in our Area book. Her name was Lupita. We actually talked to her sister and mom but they all seemed really interested in starting the lessons again. The member that was working with them was one of the girls friend. We didn't recognize the name so decided to go look them up too. Come to find out they are active but in another ward. Something with the mom not being active for a while and only going to a certain ward I dunno. They seem really cool, we talked with the daughter and come to find out she has a cousin that is interested too. The only problem will be getting her parents to sign the permission slip. So just by visiting a former investigator we got three refferals! How cool is that!
On saturday I got to finally put my bike to use! Every once in a while the mission does a "Car Free Day" not a missionary in the mission uses a car unless with special permission from president. So we had some appointments across our area so Elder Amundsen borrowed a bike and we hit the streets! It was really fun, it reminded me of riding around the neighborhood with Jason. We had a couple appointments fall through so we got a lot of tracting in that day. We knocked on one door, a spanish guy answered invited us in gave us some cold water, as we were talking he started to tell of how he's been searching for a church, seen us around a few times, didn't like how he's felt at other churches, wants a church that his whole family would like. Whoa! He said all the right things! So we invited him to church for the next day. We fixed him a ride and... He and his wife and two of there three little girls came to all 3 hours of church yesterday!! I can't wait to find out what they think. I don't want to get my hopes too high, but it was awesome to see them come after just talking briefly for a couple of minutes. They're names are Oscar and Janet. It was cool!
Also on sunday, Sergio and Anthony were confirmed! Yeah! Elder Amundsen confirmed Anthony and I confirmed Sergio. I was a little nervous to do it in Spanish, but it worked out great! We showed them pictures of our family's and taught about temples this week. That was really fun.
We have Noche De Hogar tonight with them and we're doing it a little more scripture then fun activity but I think they'll like it. The Armor of God was awesome, so we thought this time we'd maybe do something on the Book of Mormon.
Had to drop Jose this week, he just hasn't come to church and is never home for our appointments. Who knows maybe he'll remember something we taught him. I kinda have a feeling he's not all there, so I hope he at least learned something from us.
Salvador is going strong... ish. He still hasn't come to church, don't know why. We have an appointment with him tomorrow. We gotta get him to church! Other then that he's on the road for baptism. However, if he doesn't come to church soon, we're going to push the date back. Which would be unfortunate cause Elder Amundsen is probably leaving this transfer.
Stacy is tomorrow too, I'm excited for her. I can't wait to find out what she found out. Tomorrow is going to be a big day!
That's about it for me. I loved the e-mails this week! Sounds like the show is going to be great! Again... send pictures! Especially of the set, and mom as a old murderous lady. All's good here in Compton. Love you, miss you!

Elder Groves

September 9th!

2009-10-14T08:35:00.001-07:00

What a crazy week!!
Lets start off with the baptisms on sunday. All three went great! First off we went Edwins which was in the gorgeous coast city of San Pedro. We got there a lot earlier then we had expected which was good. It gave us time to wright him a letter of congratulations, since we don't really have much money to get him anything. We did do a rubbing of our name tags which I think was pretty cool. His wife Vanessa started crying when he went under. She later bore her testimony and said she's so happy to see him make this step. Even though it took 2 years and 6 sets of missionaries. It really was a really nice service. We bounced really quickly from there to get back to our ward baptisms that both Elder Amundsen and I were preforming. We got there to find out our investigators weren't even there yet. So we went and got changed then when the boys finnaly arrived we could breathe. They all went well, I baptized Sergio first, stuttered at the prayer in Spanish but made it through the first time, then Elder Amundsen of course. I was talking to the boys afterwards and Anthony said, He felt good, and different. That kid is going places! Sergio asked if he could be baptized again, I told him when he's 12. I sang at the service, Venid a Cristo, Come unto to Jesus. So Sunday was a really really good day.
Monday we went and visited our friend Rosy, we did this because one of the other Elders who had had dinner with her earlier that week said that she told them her husband was going to move out so she could get baptized. Woohoo!!! Sad... but... Woohooo!!! We went and talked to her, it's not all completely worked out, we still need to talk with him. The hard thing is you can never tell when he's serious and when he's not. Hopefully we can get something worked out this week.
We had a good lesson with Salvador this week. He told us he was going to try to come to church. Unfortunately he got sick and has been sick for a couple days. We have an appointment with him tomorrow and so hopefully we can work some things out.
Stacy is the lesson of the week!! It started with a meeting our zone had with President Blackburn, he told us we need to commit baptism on the 1st lesson. That's tough. Not only that but he said all investigators who don't have a baptismal date need one in the next appointment. That's Stacy. So we went and talked to her about the Book of Mormon, while talking and reading she actually brought up Authority. So... we extended the commitment. She sat there... thought about it.... we let the Spirit soak in... then she said she would have to pray about it. It's not a yes but it's not a no. Aftward we started talking a little more... she did a little more thinking... then she asked "So if what your saying is true... everyone needs to be a Mormon?" Our member that was there testified and said yes. Awesome!!! The spirit was the strongest I've ever felt it in a lessson. She definately understands the need of the restoration of that priesthood authority! I can't wait til tuesday!
Work is really picking up, we are doing less tracting and more appointments. Unfortunately we will probably be dropping Jose this week, and maybe the Florez family cause we can't get in contact with them and they stand us up on appointments. However we've got some other potentials we've come across and some good less actives to work with. Plenty for us here. Just keep praying that they all can come to know the truth and have the deseo!! (desire!) without the knowledge and desire the spirit gives, nothing is going to happen.
One funny thing that did happen this week, and I thank my animal loving and skills from my mom for it, was while we were tracting we came across a house with a big black dog. we approach the fence, as does the dog, I stuck my hand out to let it sniff me. It did and then started liking my hand. So I opened the gate so we could go knock on the door. My companion isn't that much of a dog lover. He still didn't want to go in. While we sat outside talking about it, the dog pushed the gate open the rest of the way then took off down the street!! We didn't want to introduce ourselves as "The missionaries who lost your dog" So we went after it! He would stop, pee on something, then run down the street to pee on something else. Every time we got near, it would take off farther down the street. This patter continued for 10 minutes. Finallay we get the inbetween us and where his home is almost a block down. So he starts running the other way, eventually he stopped and just trotted back to his yard, walked through the gate, and started his nap in the shade. We knocked on the door and no one was home. Grandpa was right, there are a lot of dogs in LA, unfortunately this one likes to drives us crazy!
That day we talked to all our visits about dogs. I heard about BYU yesterday at our meeting with the President. GO COUGS!!!! That's so cool, after the meeting we went to wendy's for lunch and saw a poster for the new NCAA football game for X-box, and who's on the cover but one of the Utah Utes! That's was fun to see, my companion and I had a lot of Utah pride yesterday.
Well that's all about that's happening here in LA, we had ashes on our car a couple days ago from the forest fires. I hope all is going well at home. I love you all and miss you all!

Elder Groves

Aug 31st

2009-09-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

Hey family of mine!

Thanks for the e-mail Al, the rest of you have some work to do. ;)

This week has been awesome! Lets go back to monday. Remember how we were going to do our Moses skit. Well... we did... and... it rocked! The kids loved it. Not only did we dress up as Moses with beards and bathrobes, but we taught them the 10 Commandments using our fingers to help us remember. It was really fun. Plus I always see the kids practicing the fingers so they can remember. Tonight we're giving a lesson on The Armor of God. We're going to dress someone else up this time and throw "Firery Darts of the Adversary" at them. It should be a lot of fun.

This week we met a less active named Hilda Reyes. Spanish. We walked in and she started telling us about her niece that had served a mission and now lives in utah. We start talking. Replace her First Presidency pictures of Gordon B. Hinckley and James E. Faust with the correct ones. Apparently she doesn't go to church because her knee is bad and she can't walk much. So we're gonna see if we can get her a transportation to church from one of the members.

We had a great lesson with Stacy on Tuesday. Watched Finding Faith in Christ and bore our Testimonies. She loved it as always. This week we have it scheduled to bring a member so hopefully she start to realize we mean business, the business of saving souls. I'm really excited for that lesson this week. It's been awhile since we've really had the chance to teach her. Hopefully our member can really make a good friendship so we can get Stacy to church. I think if we can get her to church she'll be more receptive to the spirit when we're teaching.

We taught Salvador again on Tuesday. We watched the restoration DVD and he closed with prayer asking for help to get to church on sunday. It didn't happen but at least he has the desire. We're hopefully going to have another good lesson with him on tuesday. He seems really interested it's just tough to get in with him cause he is always at work. It's ok, the Lord will provide.

After we taught Salvador on Tuesday we stopped by his neighbor Miguel who we had taught before. Miguel wasn't home but we had a really nice talk with his wife, who turns out actually has a good friend that's a member. So we set up a time to teach her, and we did. It was really good. Next time we're going to teach the whole family of 4. Them two and two little girls. Plus they have some service we can do, some kind of shed they asked us to help them with. That's cool cause we never get service in our own area. Yeah, so hopefully we can start a regular schedule with the whole Florez Family.

So as far as the two boys go. Anthony had his interview with the Bishop on sunday, I was wondering how it was going to happen cause the Bishop only speaks a little English and Anthony only speaks a little Spanish. He did have to call in Anthony's cousin Bryan to help out with one thing. However, they hopped over the language barrier and Anthony is ready for Baptism on the 6th! He is so excited, it'll be cool to see him get baptized.

Sergio, he will have his interview tomorrow with our District Leader. Sergio needs it with the DL because he is 9 and Anthony is only 8 and also was blessed as a baby so he's a "child of record". That's why the Bishop had to interview him. Sergio is the most excited for the baptism. They came to a service we had yesterday, and Sergio had a lot of questoins. Some relevant to the service, most not. He likes to aske questions like if God lived with the Dinosaurs. He reminds me of Eli. Sergio asked me to baptize him and Elder Amundsen is going to baptize Anthony. We tried to get either Bryan or their Grandpa to do it, neither felt worthy. It'll be fun though. So there's 2 we'll have on sunday.

Our other Investigator with a set date is Jose. We taught him last week and found a good way to teach so he can understand it. We're going to try and get a BOM on CD for him soon so we can give him some commitments. Our only other problem with him is his drunk neighbor who likes to interrupt our lessons asking dumb pointless questions. Satan is definately doing his part on this one.

We got a message on our phone the other day. Remember our friend Edwin who moved away. We'll last week we both sent him letters because we hadn't heard anything from him and it had been a really long time. Well the same day we sent the letter, he had called us. He's getting Baptized!!! On the 6th. So we'll have 3 baptisms on sunday. Plus he wants Elder Amundsen to do it. How cool is that! Who knows maybe in a year I can watch him and his wife get sealed! It's gonna be a little tought to work out getting to both of the Services. The zone Edwin lives in just happens to be in the most southern border of the mission. So it's going to take some carefull planning but I know we can get it. WoooHooo!!

This week has been so good, it seems like the fruits of our labors are strating to show. Keep praying, I know it's been helping a lot. A lot to look forward to in September. Baptisms, oh yeah and the spanish ward is doing somekind of Family Night music recital. They asked me to sing in it. First of all it was going to be a Duet. Now it looks like it might be a Duet and a Solo. We'll see it's not til the end of the month anyway.

That about does it for this week. I hope all is going well at home, Mom are you back in school yet? How's the new house Shaina? I got the pictures of the set. Good work boys! Of course I'm sure pictures don't do it justice, but it still looked really cool from what I saw.

Love you, pray for you

Elder Groves

August 23, 3 New Investigators!!

2009-08-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

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

August 17 trio.

2009-08-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

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

Agosto 4!!

2009-08-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-04T14:15:00.002-07:00

!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

2009-08-04T14:15:00.001-07:00

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.

Compton! 7/13

2009-07-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

That's right! I'm living in the Hood! Ok, not directly in compton I don't think. My area is called Willowbrook. It does cover some of compton.
Let's start with the airport. It was a really good flight, by bags equalled eachother out, which is good, cause I was worried about that a little bit, actually a lot bit. Infact I was so worried that in order to make everything equal in weight, I accidentaly moved a lot of liquids to my carry on. So I lost my shampoo (sorry Elise) mouth wash, face wash, toothpaste, sunscreen, and I think thats it. As far as contacting people, everyone I talked to before the plane were memebers and I only sat next to Missionaries on the plane. :( OH well, an Elder did give out a Book Of Mormon so at least one of us were effective.
So we arrive at LAX and we see President and Sister Blackburn waiting for us along with the two AP's. We grab our luggage and take off to a church parking lot where the trainers are waiting. We were randomly matched with one of them, given a bag with proselyting material and an Area to go to, then we left. Unfortuanatley I ended up in a richer area, so they are not as willing to listen to strangers at there door. No sucess yet again. We went back home, Mission home, and did some Orientation things for the next 4 hours! Boring!! I guess it was important though. After that was all done, President had all the Interviews, we were given our new companions. Mine is Elder Amundsen from Sandy Utah, go figure. After that we walked down the street to the LA temple and got pictures taken. I'll send one of me and my comp. then one of me and the Mission President and his wife. So we had our picture taken, walked around the Temple to get to know our companion, had a great BBQ then took off to home.
Our area is from about 120th Street to Rosecrans. Then the 110 freeway to Alanada. So we have a little bit of Compton in there. The people are so cool though! My companion already had a couple investigators of course. One person, her name is Debroh, he had only contacted and given a pamphlet to. She was an HQ referral, which means she called the MTC to get a free DVD or something and asked to have reps come. That's me! So he only gave her the item then set up a return date. We returned, taught her the first lesson, gave her a Book of Mormon, and invited her to church. That was thursday, saturday we stopped by to just check up on her and she had already read, and wrote down some questions!! WOoOot! She came to church on Sunday, stayed for RS,SS, but left in the middle of Sacrament. We called her later and asked her why, she said she was expecting the Pastour to speak. Don't worry, we have another appointment to teach her again, with a memeber. She loved church except for sacrament. ( Don't blame her the speakers went 15 min. over) But that's Debrah!
Mithchell, he's about 16, and will be baptized on sunday! I don't really know much about him, since I've only taught him a couple times.
All our other time is spent with Rosy, she is from Mexico and hasn't gotten baptized yet because she is still legally married to her husband in Mexico, so if you know anyone that can figure out all that legal stuff, have em write me how!
I'm so lost when we go see her, because the whole thing is in spanish! She makes really good food here! I had some water yesterday that tasted just like I had a watermelon in my glass. It rocked! So my spanish isn't that great, and I get a headache at the Spanish ward cause I don't understand it, other than that things are great!!
Well, I'm just about done, as far as mail and that goes, send it to the Mission Home. Our ZL's get it every friday and give it to us that afternoon. I love you all, hope WJ is doing all right without me! Mom, if you thing your ant problem is bad now, just be glad you don't find them in your retainer case, They are everywhere here!! I have to constantly flick them off my scriptures when I'm studying. Other then those creatuers I haven't had any problems here, I really like it here, a lot of spanish which is exactly what I need. Until next time. Keep the Faith!

Elder Groves

July 8

2009-07-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

Elder Groves did not send a letter on July 8, but he called home from the Salt Lake Airport just before he boarded a plane to Los Angeles.

July 1st!

2009-07-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Uno semana mas! One week more!
Wow, what a crazy week! Lets start with the apostles.
So we sang for them Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. It was incredible! I bought a tape recorder and recorded most of our songs. I only got a little bit of one song and that was because the tape ran out. I also commented after every preformance. I'll send that to you before I leave this week. Throughout the course of these four days we sang for all 15 Apostles and Prophets. Sunday was by far my favorite one, the second prefromance. It was their sacrament meeting and there were 14 of the 15 there. The only one who didn't come was President Packer. That's because he was doing some other assignment. Wow, I have never felt the spirit so strong in my life! We sang and it was awesome. There were about five or six tenors that, because President Monson wanted to podium in the center, had to stand on the stand with the apostles a sittin about two feet behind us. Thanks for my height mom, it was the short tenors that got that oppurtunity. Because I was the shortest tenor, I was the last one off. We're leaving and I'm just beaming looking at all the Apostles and Prophets as everyone else in the choir is leaving. Some mouthed thankyou, some gave me the nod of approval,, and Elder Holland even gave me a pat on the back. Wow, that will be one of my biggest spiritual wells, something I can look back on and remember how I felt and how I have a solid knowledge that those men are called of God. After we sang we even had the oppurtunity to sit in another room and they broadcasted President Monson's talk to us. Yes!! If I had a choice between "listening to the prophet talk" heaven and regular heaven, I'd choose prophet heaven, MMM BOY! He talked a lot about how the Mission Presidents our the missionaries parents, in proxy. It was really cool, we did have to leave early because we had to get to another meeting.
Other news, I leave in a week! Wohoo!! Am I ready? Spiritually, maybe. Spanishly, not even close! Am I nervous? You bet! I leave wednesday the 8th. My flight leaves at 8:30. Which means sometime before that, they say I can call you! So I'll call the house and whoever wants to listen can. I don't want to spend too much time talking to you, sorry, but I want to spend a lot of time contacting in the airport, plus I don't know how much time I really will have.
It's crazy, we will go from knowing everything of the MTC to knowing nothing of LA. Sweet! I can't wait to start teaching real investigators, and to be with a companion who has more experience then I do, so I can learn a lot from him.
It sounds like everything is going well at home, glad to see the show went off alright, even though the swine flu hit it pretty hard. We call swine flu "Puerco Muerto" Pig Death. It's calmed down a lot here. There aren't as many missionaries in quarantine and we can almost do everything at Gym again. We still can't shake hands, so that will be something wierd once I get to the field, being able to shake hands again. I hope mom is enjoying summer break. Say hi to Elise for me, tell her I met the girl who played the piano for her last summer. I've also seen Collin Grant, James "Jimmy" Bush the 2nd, and Douglas Westwood. I hope to get a picture with all three sometime before I leave. Well that's all for this week, I don't know when you'll be getting my next E-mail, it may not be for awhile. Talk to you then, Love, Elder Groves

June 24

2009-06-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Hello Family!!
It's good to hear from you, although I only got one letter from Shaina. Mom still hasn't figured out DearElder, Dad if you could help with that. That really is the best way to send, then I don't have to spend my 30 minutes reading and can spend it talking.
The singing is going so good! We are singing some amazing songs! Here are a few "Precious Savior Dear Redeemer" (New arrangement) "Jesus Once of Humble Birth" (New Arrangement) "This is the Christ" "Blessings" (Come thou fount arrangement) and a really cool arrangement of "Jospeh Smiths First Prayer" My favorite is "This is the Christ" The words are by James E. Faust and are Incredible! Don't worry I bought a little tape recorder and will send home a recording.
Story of the week happened yesterday. My companion woke up and said that his right eye felt like someone sliced it. He forgot to take his contacts out before he went to sleep. So we spent most the day in different waiting rooms, here at the MTC and they even had to shuttle us to a opthamalogist. So we got to see "The outside world" it wasn't very exciting. we have to go again friday and once a week til we leave.
As far as I know our departure date is still July 8. Doug comes in this week! I hope I can find him today, if not today definatley in the next two weeks. It's fun to see new missionaries come in and ask you for help, it reminds me of seven weeks ago.
All is well here, not as much swine flu as was before, there's even a rumor going around we can do contact sports like basketball and soccer next week. I hope so cause that includes using the gloves for softball! Allison Harmon is in the choir with me, a long with Anne Roper. It's fun to see them around, I also have seen Katie Cluff.
So Brindle has taught marley how to be an indecent cat and lay on its back. Good Girl! A lot of people ask about my dog when they see that picture, I love it!
Speaking of pictures, could you send some of the awesome and beautiful set I keep hearing about?! I'm glad the show is going great, Of course it's great they have the best people working on it!
Well can't write much more, only ask you to write more, letters are one of the best things I have to keep me working hard, it reminds me of how happy me and my family are with the gospel, and so my desire to share it grows.
It's so awesome to be here serving the lord, It's incredible the blessings I recive and how much my testimony grows. Right now I'm studying the four gospels and the life of Jesus Christ, I'm learning so much and that is definately something I reccommend.
I love you all and pray that you too can feel how I feel here, that you can have the spirit strong in your lives. I miss you but I know that you'll be blessed. Until next time,

Keep the faith,
Elder Groves

Crazy weird week of June 17th!

2009-06-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

There are so many things to write about in this letter. I'll start out with how the week started, then hopefully you'll see how it improved.
I started the week like any other, with study. All throughout my studies this week I've been reading and studying but it seems like the same fire I had before to study had dwindled. Sunday I became an official zone leader, that didn't help. Monday I kicked trash at our Spanish speaking game, that didn't help. Yesterday was the day of the week!It was RC day which rocked, and in the RC we're just about to leave, I had made one Spanish call sent her El Libro de Mormón. Anyway, we're about to leave and I get an incoming call, little did I know that that call would be from Joe and I would talk to him for the next 25 minutes! Joe had a lot of questions, what was really cool is i just did what our teachers had taught us and ask him questions so he can answer on his own. It was so cool to hear him find out what he needed to do, what he needed to pray about and be direct. He kept saying that he never thought of that before. Now I think he was a little odd in the head, but he really wanted some help and I'm glad I could offer that for him. That added a new log to my fire.
Experience number 2
We went to practice just like every tuesday, President Brenchly led us, it was great! The last five minutes of choir he read of 36 names. "If these people could meet me in the lobby right now" (My name and my companions Elder Welch were among the ones read, along with two sister from our district) We go to the lobby, we're handed a package with about four or five pieces of music in it. We sing some of the music, then President Brenchly tells us the reason we're there. "This choir will be singing next week for the General Authorities. You will be singing every morning to them while they are visiting the MTC. It's possible the first presidency will be there"... I'm just gonna let that soak in a little... ... ... Wow. We have practice every morning for an hour and we have to memorize all the songs by thursday. I have a lot of work to do, but there is a chance I can meet the Prophet of the Lord! A huge log was added to my fire, it's amazing how the Lord will always answer our prayers!
I don't know what else to write after that... It's been a good last couple of days. I'm starting to teach in spanish now, that's hard. I can't believe I've been here for six weeks already. Three more and I'm outta here! I got the paper for your package but haven't picked it up yet. I hope all is going well at home. I'm grateful for your prayers and I love you all!

Elder Groves

P.S. I have a commitment to extend to those who have served a mission, Will you reflect on your mission and find what it was that pushed you through your hard times whether it be a talk a scipture a hymn, then tell three people that experience and how your prayers were answered.

June 10

2009-06-10T08:40:00.001-07:00

Hello all!
It's been another great week here at the training place of the Lords soldiers.
All our district is back together! YAY!! After almost a week of having a solo sister, and only two companionships of Elders it's nice to see the family together again. Our two quarantined pigs have returned and the ones sick and confined only to their rooms are feeling well enough to come out.
The highlight of the week is definately the talk yesterday given by none other than Elder David A. Bednar! I just love how easily he can connect with everyone especially missionaries. He talked about a question he always is asked, How can I tell if it's me or the Holy Ghost? He simple and profoundly said, Stop worrying, if your a good boy it won't matter, press forward with fast and keep a mind of Jesus Christ. AWESOME!!! He told a few stories about his mission and his call as a Stake President. I don't think I have time to tell you the complete story but look up President Packers talk called, THe 20 Mark note. It's awesome!

Sunday my companion got sick and we had to stay all day in our residence. That was hard, especially since I wasn't sick so I didn't get to sleep the whole time. I did get all my shoes polished and my shirts ironed.

The language is coming. It's hard because now we have to start speaking a few days in only spanish. I don't have a big enough vocabulary yet to express myself the way I want, and I have to go about some pretty strange ways to get my points across. But it helps so much just to SYL= HSI= Speak Your Language = Hablar Su Idioma. Four days this week I have to speak in only spanish. Ayi Ayi Ayi!! Muy Dificil!

I did begin spanish calls at the RC, but the only person that answered the phone actually spoke english so I don't know how much we learned, maybe next week.

Love you all, hope everything is going well, I can't believe that next week we may be the oldest district in our zone. Wierd! Anyway, good luck with the show and with life.

Carpe Diem!!

Love, Elder Groves

June 3rd!?

2009-06-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

I don't have swine flu. What you've heard from the church news is true, about there be three cases confirmed here and 17 Edlers quarintined. They are being oh so strict with the rules regarding health now. If you feel any kind of sickness your asked to stay in your room, call the front desk so they can set up an appointment with the helath clinic. A fever and chills gets you quarantined. We have two Elders from our zone in quarantine right now, and four more staying in there rooms all day. Crazy sauce!
On other news. President Nelson (my branch president) called me and my companion in for an interview on sunday... boom! New zone leaders!! We definatley did not see that coming. Technically we're ZLIT Zone Leaders In Training until the old one leave, or until June 14. Since that's more likely cause they are delaying all missionaries a week. So, yeah in training, we have to do the new Edler orientation for the Elders we'll get today. I just hope our zone leaders get helathy fast, (they're in there rooms) so we don't have to go completely by the spirit for that orientation.
Another week another TA. This one was not as good as the last one. The spanish task was to follow up on commitments while taking them to church. We didn't have enough people to be investigators so they had to go ask a couple Elders who were a few weeks ahead of us to fill in. I think Edler Welch and I knew more spanish then he did. He would give us much of any kind of answer when we asked him a question. He did commit to baptism though, I was just frustrated with the fact that we had prepared so much for the type of investigator we were told to have, then we got our large Tongan friend who forgot what the background storie was. Oh well, it was good practice none the less.
I'm singing in the choir now, way fun to be in a large choir again. We sing at the Tuesday devotionals. I sang on sunday too, a duet with my companion. It went really well, a sister in my district wants to form a quartet and audition for the special musical numbers, I'm totally game!
All in all it's been a pretty tough week, I have had to remind myself alot to "forget yourself and go to work" I've been trying my best and I know that's what the lord expects of me. The Spanish is getting hard but I'm pushing through it.
I don't really know what else to tell you about this week. Just keep writing, and to let you know, I do e-mail in the morning between 7:30-10:30 while I wait for my laundry. So if you send me a letter tueday, I won't get to writing you til next week, However if you send me a letter any other time of the week, I'll write back wednesday! I haven't got a letter from anyone for a week, (except mom's e-mail this morning) I hope all is well at home. Love you!

Love, Elder Groves

Week 3

2009-05-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's P-Day!!
This week has been quite the adventure, where do I begin?

Elder Welch and I have been spending some good time in the Refferel Center this week and have talked to some pretty interesting people. First off, we talked to a guy who wanted to know why we know God exists and he's not something made up like Santa Clause. We never did convince him all we could do was testify, some people just can't understand the idea of faith.
Another interesting thing that happened at the RC happened yesterday. We ended up talking with a guy named Tyron. He's said he is about to get baptised but has some questions about the church and wanted to get a second opinion (rather then the Elders hes learning from) So he had a lot of good questions, questions about blacks and the curse, questions about homosexuality, and questions about sin. We talked with him for about 45 minutes just answering his questions. He wanted to learn more but we had to go. So we did what any missionary would do... set up a next appointment! That will be friday, hopefully we can help he better understand the importance of baptism.

We had our TA on saturday, this time we taught a young man named David. We first contacted him and got to know him in Spanish, then taught him the first lesson in English.
At first he couldn't understand the importance of families. We spent a lot of time on it, then finally my companion asked him what was important to him, he said hanging out with friends and being happy, my companion took that and turned it right back toward families and then it finally "clicked" for him.
The rest of the lesson was AWESOME! Elder Welch and I both agree it was probably one of the best we've taught.

We also have a "progressive Investigator" which means it's a teacher pretending to be an investigator and we wll teach her all up until we've "baptized" her. We didn't even finish the first lesson with Rachel, but we like having someone to plan a lesson around during companionship study. We'll teach her the rest of the first lesson tomorrow.

We finally had choir yesterday. YAY! Thanks for having Bro. Brenchely call me out... yeah...

The Gym opened yesterday which means a weight room and treadmills. Maybe I won't get fat here afterall. They do nothing but feed you then have you sit the whole day.

My companion is great! We do get into some arguments now and then, but it's about mainly how we handle things differently in certain situations. Like our non god beleiving friend. I wanted to be more offensive when he questions J.S. he wanted to be more Defensive. I actually like it, it shows he will voice his feelings and wont just let me run over them. He does say I talk a lot... oops.

I'm having a blast here, we had two missionaries from chile, and one from the DR join our floor last night. We wanted them to only talk to us in spanish, they only wanted to talk english. Even though their english is so much better then our spanish.
We also got a few missionaries from Hong Kong join us. They are here learning english, one of them kept asking us spanish words, saying he wants to learn spanish too! Ha ha, funny chinese missionaries.

I'm glad everything is good there, I hope everyone had a great memorial day. Way to read a poem dad! Tell everyone I love them and I'm having a great time. Everything they teach us, every speaker who talks to us, every time we teach, just gets us more and more eager to go to the field!

I was reading about peter denying christ thrice this week and came across a talk by president Hinckely. You should read it, it's so great!

anyway my time is almost gone, send more letters! I love hearing from you and sometimes can't wait til wednesday! ha ha.

Love you, miss you, pray for you.

Elder Groves

May 20th

2009-05-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Two weeks?! I've been here two weeks already? wow, the other Elders were right when they said the first three days are really slow, then the time flys!

Wow, this week has been awesome, a lot of cool teaching experiences and a lot of studying. We had our first TA (Teaching Appointment) which is when we teach an "Investigator" or really a member just pretending to be an investigator. It's really cool though because they aren't wearing a name tag so it's a lor different then teaching fellow missionaries. This time they feel more like potential converts. Anyway, for this one we had to do a door approach in Spanish to three different people then the last one, we taught them the first lesson in English. This was so much fun, we learned a lot. I felt the lesson went well and we did almost everything we should have. The only things we really messed up on were asking informitive questions. So more than just a yes and no question but a question that can let us know if they are understanding what we're teaching them. The other thing we messed up on were the commitments. We kinda asked all three in one question so we couldn't know which one she was saying yes to. Oh well, that's why were here to learn and to grow. aprender y progreso.

Spanish is coming well, I'm suprised to know how much I do right now. It will be fun to talk to the new district of Elders who come in our zone today, in Spanish to confuse and excite them.

I hope everything is going well at home, Mom I hope your show is going great! I'm sorry to hear about your brannegin. You seem to have bad luck like that with shows! Chiste. (Kidding) I can't wait to hear opening night! So how's is the home life Dad? What stupid things has marley done now? I love you very much and think about everyone all the time. All the Elders here want to write Elise, I just tell them they can... but she has a boyfriend they have to write to too.

Love you all! Thank you for the suppport and send more letters!! :)

Elder Groves

" The mission is not a sacrifice but an investment in the future"
Elder Nuenschwander of the Seventies.

One week down!

2009-05-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm here! I'm actually here! This place is so exciting frustrating and spirirtual all at the same time! My companion is Elder Welch from Cody, Wyoming. He has a little sister named Riley and constantly points it out to me. He's a really cool kid, we get along great.

The language is coming... yeah. I know how to pray and how to bear my testimony and that's about it. I'm supposed to be able to contact someone and invite them to recieve our message by the end of the week.

Yesterday was probably one of the worst and one of the best. I say one of the worst because one of our Elders in our district decided to go home. I don't know if he was really home sick or if he felt unworthy, either way we were all sad to see him go. Our branch president said that he will be coming back, just not to our district.

However, yesterday was awesome because we had a tuesday night devotional!! YAY! ok ok, so what's so big about a devotional? well we usually have at least a member of the seventy come and talk to us. every once in awhile we will get an apostle, but they had one last week so... we got.... Elder Russel M. Nelson. Everyone was suprised that we got two apostles right in a row.

I felt the spirit intensify the moment he walked in! He talked about how we need to be alert, and how we can share our message in just four words (three in spanish) "We Follow Jesus Christ". Segimos a Jesucristo.

They feed us really well here... almost too well. I have to watch myself and make sure I don't eat too much. They do give us Gym time, which helps a little... until my ankle gets bruised when I try and catch a softball with it, I guess I'll just have to use my mit next time.

I love it so much here and I am having a blast, the days seem like weeks but the weeks seem like days. Something that happened this morning seems like it happend last week, but something that happened last week seems like it happened yesterday. They keep us so busy and so occupied here. We plan out every hour of our day, and they make sure we have very detailed plans for every hour.

I'm a little dissapointed cause they are re-doing the floor of the gym. That means no basketball or choir til June. Oh well at least I'll get to use it sometime while I'm here.

I'm so excited to learn more and to be able to teach the good people of California. I love this place but I can't wait to leave and go preach the word! I love all of you and hope all your days are as exciting and full of the spirit. There's nothing better for a missionary here, then to recieve letters, so please write! You have to use DearElder.com though, cause we only get 30 min. on e-mail every day and DearElder delivers your letter the same day. Sorry you didn't get my letter til late, I hope you enjoyed it. I love all of you and I'm excited to hear from you.

Love. Elder Groves.

Well, here goes everything!

2009-05-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight's the night! I will be set a part as one of the lords finest! I'm suited and armed to fight. I'm ready... kinda.

A few days ago if you were to ask me if I was nervous at all, I'd say "No way Jose!" (get it? Spanish speaking) Now... yeah, I am. I go into to the MTC tomorrow and am about to enter nothing I expect. I'm stoked! I'm ready to push my self the furthest I've ever gone. I'm ready to experience the greatest roller coaster as far as emotions go (at least that's what I'm told) I'm ready.

That doesn't mean I can't be nervous. By ready I mean, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Nothing can fully prepare me for the journey I'm about to embark on. Nothing can get me ready to bear the hardships and trials that I'm about to face in the next two years.

I'm ready, I'm nervous, but I'm not scared because I know the lord will be with me every step of the way. He's been with me so far, no reason for him to back out now.

So this is goodbye... for now. Any posts from here on out will be one of my family posting something from my letters. I made a goal long ago that I will not be a facebook/blog missionary.

So to all my family and friends, thank you for your love and support, and god speed!

2 "dec-days"

2009-04-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

Today marks twenty days and counting til lift off. I'm fully ready (except for the shots and some reading, but you can never be all the way spiritually ready) Nervous? NO!!! Excited some? Yes!!! wish I didn't have school so I could leave earlier. You bet your socks I do!

The beginning of the end.

2009-03-18T00:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday is the start of the end. The end of my teenage years. It will be my last year as a teenager. Here are my teenage memories.

13: 7Th grade English class, Ms. Cox teaching. Neal Hovorka threw a paper dart at me, it landed directly into my tear duct, thus keeping it self sustained in my eye without pain. We kept it there for a couple minutes cause it was pretty cool!

14: Sitting on my parents bed, sobbing and hugging my family because we had just heard some terrible news about one of the greatest men to bless our family, the first time I had lost someone really close to me.

15: Soon to be a driver on the road, my friend Tyler Gaisford decided to teach me to drive a stick. I wrecked his T-bird! Totaled it! We lied to the cops so I would still be ably to get a license.We confessed the whole thing to our parents a week later. I got a $62 fine and a stern warning.

16: Having Carynn calling me in the middle of one of my classes to tell me to meet her downstairs, I went down not knowing what was going on. I found her in the hall her face smeared with tears, she hugged me, then told me that one of our friends had taken her own life the night before.

17: Was mentioned in the opening prayer of sacrament meeting, due to a head on collision I was involved in just outside the church. It happened right before church was to begin so the whole neighborhood saw Riley, his Dad, the Cops, and the wreckage as they were pulling in for church.

18: Moved away to college, found out a lot about myself, how I handle situations, and where I turn when I'm in need. Made a lot of new friends, and got called to serve in the LA California Spanish Speaking Mission for the LDS Church.

19: We'll just have to wait and see!!!

Switch blade?

2009-03-03T12:36:00.000-08:00

I recently attended a church meeting where the speaker rambled on about switch points in his life. Apparently he had served in the same BYU Student stake for 11 years! He talked of how he being realesed is simply another switch point in his life. This got me to reflect upon my own life. I'm heading to one of the biggest switch points I will ever have.

I don't think of this as a "switch point" though. It's a switch BLADE. A point you see it coming and you gradually ease into the new curve of the twisting and widing track we call life. I may see this coming but there's no way I can gradually ease into leaving my friends and family for two years, learn a new language and go change people's lives.

This is a switch blade that will strike hard. I'm ready for some of it. I'm ready to try new things, as I like to think I always am and love to do it, this new thing though will be the hardest of my life. This is the switchblade into adult.

In two years I'll come back and be expected to actually do something with that life, I'll need to go to school, become somebody, do something that will somehow effect the world. I have to like it too or it won't get done.

I guess that is one of my greatest fears, returning from the field and finding out that the thing I want to do will not be the easiest thing or the highest paying or even the best to raise a family on. Family, I'm expected to have a family within the next five to ten years. Me a family?! Me getting married? I don't even think I look for a ring on the left finger when I see an attractive young lady, I guess I better start.

I'm about to see how quick this switchblade is. I have a few months and then it's off with my life!

The First Day of the Rest of My Life!

2009-02-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

Time: 8:09 am Wednesday February 11^th 2009

Location: Room 722 in the Computer Science building at Utah Valley University

That morning already started out great, I got to school on time and understood what my project was to be for my media class. I had no idea what would entail the rest of the day.

So there I was drawing logs and fire on Adobe photoshop when my phone vibrated. My first thought was that I got a text message. “I’ll look at it later” I thought. Then another vibration, short, followed by many more. That aint no text message. Not being aware of the time I thought that it might be my alarm, then I looked at my phone and saw that it was my father. Now why would my father call me at 8 in the morning, I knew my call was coming, but that won’t come til at least two. I’ll be there to pick it up from the mail. I let it go, I’ll call him back. He calls again… this is big. I text him and ask him whats going on. The next text I got made the rest of my day the longest day I have ever had. He told me he had my call, and my mom sent me a picture of it.

The next two years of my life was sitting on the kitchen table, while I still had to sit in two more classrooms for the day. That’s all I could think about. I felt like I was in Jerry Seinfield’s airport skit about water. We’re students were supposed to be learning, “WHO CARES!? MISSION!!”

There was one thing I was worried about that evening, will I be able to get out of rehearsal, I had texted my stage manager when I first heard the news, not only that but I told her a week ago I might get it. I wasn’t fully at ease until I got that text from heather saying it was ok if I was late. (my life doesn’t revolve around texting I promise)

Destinee and I got home around 3:30 or 4, everyone would be at the house at 6. We watched “Across the Universe” to try and pass the time. Yeah right.

The time had finally come, I was sitting on the piano bench. All the camera’s were posed, I was on speaker phone with a few phones.

I took the letter opener and slid it across the sticky white sealed paper, the moment I had been waiting for all my life was here. Only a few things will top this moment. I ripped it open and pulled out the letter. I had decided I wouldn’t cheat and I would find out the same time as everyone else in the room. I read the letter word for word, then it came. “ You have been called to labor in the California, Los Angeles Mission… you will be speaking Spanish.”

Jelly Belly

2009-02-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

I've decided I don't have a best friend. I have many different flavors.

My friends are teh right mix that I need. I don't necessarily have one particular person to whom I pour out my entire soul. I like to think that I have many different jelly beans and I'll partake of the one I fell like that day. Don't get me wrong, I have many close friends to whom I am grateful for. As of choosing one of them to be the one person who knows me the best, I can't say they exist.

I have the friends with whom I assosiate the most with, they are the ones closest to a best friend. They can tell in a blink what day I'm having, and still make that day the best! Then there's the friends that can send one little text to cheer me up and htey don't know it.

I have my theatre friends whom I can sing and dance with in a parking lot and love every minute of it. I have my roommates and ward friends whom I discuss girls and church and strange situations that just might occur but not very likely. I also have the friends that facebook stalk me and I love it!

Thanks friends: DS,ED,AB,D R, AW, SB, MB, HF, AG, KB, J,E,M,A,JF,C-F

Carpe Diem!

2009-01-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

The bad day's only make the good days even better!

I had a good day.

I got up and was actually on time for class! My professor was funny, and not just a dumb professor trying to be funny so students will give him a good rating.

I ate at J Dawgs. It was good and worth the wait.

I learned something while at school. Huh go figure.

I got set up for something I've always wanted to do, but never have. I'm going on a blind date.

I think the show is extending my range, lets just hope it stays that way.

I'm dancing again. :)

I heard "My Asian friend" tell her naked man happenings book story.

I scuba dived. ;)

I got a lot of reading done.

I got free waterproof shoe spray because the girl at the other store forgot to put it in.

I had a good day.

Let it snow!

2008-12-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

It's cold, It's wet. It's the best thing yet!

I think complaining about snow should be illegal.

Cons: Cold, Wet, Hard to drive in, can cause the daily commute to become a daily driving skills test not to mention the traffic! (20 minutes just to get out of Utah County!)

Pros: It makes the world gorgeous!!

I like to thing of it as heavenly father saying... mud and rain are no good, I'll cover them up with a pure white blanket of snow!

Let it snow!

Maybe...

2008-12-13T23:35:00.000-08:00

It Snowed!!

I'm waiting...

Christmas Season really is the best time of the year.

Music is like the Chimney for the soul, if everything gets too hot, it's got a place to escape.

My fingers hurt, but I'm getting better.

I'm not scared.

Finals are almost over... not soon enough!

I was McGyver this week.

I have relinquished my enjoyment of a rubik's cube.

Did I mentioned it snowed?

I love breathing in cool air, then seeing your breath when you breath out.

I hate having to wake up in the cold.

Singing is great, but it can get me into trouble.

The lord will provide a way.

I started and am almost done.

Can I be old enough for that so soon?

I'm going to bed.

Decisions, Decisions

2008-12-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

I decided this one will be in poem form, it's not perfect but it's a start. (and it's late)

Lonely I walk the same unforgiving path, knowing every step brings me closer to the goal at last.
As I walk with the passion gone, i see a new path in the breaking dawn.
If I choose to walk this fresh new ground, I will lose the path I had once found.
The question which tortures my soul, is what will be my final goal.
They both require all my being, and both will make or break my feeling.
My heart wishes to stay and walk, even after it gets dark.
On the same path and never leave, for if then will I only forever grieve.
Could this new path have the same effect? or will I soon regret
My sudden answer and reply, oh do I wish I could fly.
My answer swiftly it must come, before the suns race is done.
For I must return home before too late,
and save the paths for another date.
Yet look, a third path now awaits.

Why? Why Santy Why?

2008-12-08T09:52:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a young boy, me. This boy his whole life was told he was going to give away 2 years of his life to serve the lord. He was told those two years would be the best and the worst two years he has yet to experience. Just the other night this young boy was enjoying the company of good friends, drinking hot cocoa and having a few laughs, everything is hunky-dory right? He engages in a conversation with a friend who he highly respects, they start talking about this two yeah endeavour he will soon embark on. Then, she threw a curve ball. She asked him why he was going. After some pondering he gave her an answer that would continue the conversation. He had a base hit. It was the next day that our fair hero would hit the home run. He was sitting in church listening to students bear there roommate-onies, testimonies, and mission-onies. He was pondering about the curve ball and then he hit it! He loves the lord! He is going to go to a land of the unknown, at least to him, talk to the people of the unknown and deal with new things. He's leaving his family, his home, and his friends. For two years he will communicate with his family mainly by email. Why then would he do all of this, why would he sacrifice all this, leave school and his job. He loves the Lord!

This boy is very thankful for a great bishop who helped him realize this.

A picture can say it all

2008-11-27T01:37:00.000-08:00

Bond, Transporter, Twilight. These are the movies hitting the blockbusters this weekend. Bond, it was good. It was not great. Don't get me wrong, the action the guns the fire. Awesome! But what makes a great movie is when you walk away from it having gained something. When you walk away having learned something new about yourself and how you work. Dead Poets Society, Crash, Rudy, Across the Universe, these are to name a few GREAT movies.

The story's that seem to last through the decades are the ones that give you meaning. Nursery rhymes and kids tales that are know on every place on earth, are known because of the lessons they teach. Why has Hollywood gone to the cheap money?

Where are they? I haven't seen one of these type of movies hit the big screen for a while. Maybe that's why I want to go into film. To bring back the movies that make you want to go out and conquer the world.

Write em and shoot em. Change the world.

Dead of Night

2008-10-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

Time: 12:30 am Mountain Standard Time

Location: Off the freeway at 9000 S. West Jordan Utah

Mission: Find the missing vehicle

This is the official report from agent Riley H. Groves. The accident occurred on October 4th, 2008 at approximately 12:45 a.m.

I was coming home from watching the game at my sisters place. It was dark and I was sitting shotgun in my brothers rundown Lexus. He had received a phone call from our friend inviting him to join him at a nearby dance. I knew something was a foot because the moment he passed where my car was parked, I saw my car was not to be found.

It ended up this dance was all a big scam for the Mormons to get your money and make you date, crazy religion. Anyway, we start heading back to the location where my car was last seen. After passing the parking lot and driving around a bit more my brother was able to find a way in. We drive into the parking area.

We approach the place where I had previously parked my car, assuming that it would still be there untouched. Alas, to our dismay and disbelief the car was no where to be found. I turn down the Indy music on the radio and tell my brother to drive around, we see on a nearby lamp post, the sign that would ruin my evening.

TOW AWAY ZONE

It may not have been much of a car but I could tell when I first drove it that this was to be the car I would drive.

There we sat in a parking lot, rain coming down on the rusted green paint of the Lexus. When my brother called I knew I had to pay, I just didn't know the price would be so much.

We drive across town and find an ATM, not wanting the company to have my car any longer I get my $227.00 and leave.

I left my card in the ATM.

We drove across town again and I could tell it was getting late, I could feel it. I also saw the clock now said 1:00 a.m.

After calling a toll free number which only asked for my 7 digit credit card number I knew this night was far from over, and I will not sleep early.

Arriving at the tow truck paradise, I approach the large truck occupied by a large man. He hands me some paper work and with his pistol safely tucked in the back of his pant he points a heavily tattooed arm in the direction of my car and pulls the cigarette out of his mouth to say, "It's over there".

I drive home that night, praying a third thing won't happen tonight because we all know, these things come in threes.

It's almost over!

2008-04-08T14:20:00.001-07:00

I've been waiting... and waiting.... and waiting for high school to be done. I'm so excited to get going on what I want to be doing! Only two months left then it off to work and then to school. It's sad to be going, after all three years of my life have been spent in the halls of old dubya jay! It will be hard to leave my friends, and the great teachers. On the other hand I'm stoked to meet new people and have new experiences. I even think I'm more excited for that than sad for leaving high school. There are however two things I'm currently worried about for the big switch. First I don't think the summer job I had planned on doing will still be there when I'm out of school. I was planning on building houses with my cousin... however the rate of houses being built is going down so I don't know if they still need me or not. If anyone has a well paying summer job they could hook me up with that would be sweet! The other item of business thats been a little bit of a thorn is my roomates. I don't know of any guys going to UVU (a.k.a UVSC). I will go down regardless of knowing my roomates or not, but it would be nice to live with someone who I know. Well I'll just sit and wait still working on high school stuff for at least a month. Then we'll see how I feel about still doing work from WJHS.

Surprise!

2008-03-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

Saturday March 22, 2008.
I was surprised. When I walked into the room i saw the fam there thought nothing of it... then I bout had a heart attack when all my friends had jumped out and yelled surprise from downstairs. It was terrific! With cake and the distraction provided by the Butlers, in fact I think Carynn had planned the whole thing. I had messed some of it up, but she was able to work it out.
It was nice to see some of the friends I don't always get to see, it was nice to catch up with them. I even had a friend get in a big fight with the parentals, don't know if it was worth it but it meant a lot to me, I had a blast. Glad I can now say that I have experienced the pleasure and enjoyment of a surprise party.