May 20th

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!

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!

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"

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.

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?

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!

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.”