Commandments and Prayer

This week was gooood. We found 14 new people just through contacting them on the street! Whoop whoop! But we tried to find every single one of them this week and haven't been able to catch them at the right time in their house...so they are never home. :( But that's okay, I know if its what they need to Lord will provide a way for us to find and teach them! We had a little miracle happen though yesterday! Last week on Sunday we contacted a kid in the street. His name is Antonio Gomez. Anyways, so we have been teaching him this whole week and its just been great! But the problem is that he works in a Tortilleria (tortilla store) everyday and has to ask 15 days ahead of time to get a day off. So he was like ya I wont be able to go to church this week. So, my comp and I felt the same impression in the lesson and we just said if this is something you want to do, and if you pray for help we Know the Lord will provide a way for you to attend church this week with us because when the Lord gives us a commandment and we want to live it, He will Always provide a way for us to be obedient to it. So we prayed and prayed the whole week and on Sunday morning like 4 hours before church started he called us and with such a happy and pleased voice he said, "I asked my boss yesterday and he said that I can go to church with you today!!!" My comp and I just looked at each other and we just wanted to shout for joy! He was the only investigator that came yesterday.

The Lord is looking out for us and He is blessing us more than I can even realize. That little miracle strengthened my testimony on commandments and prayer. I know with all my heart if we want to be obedient to the commandments, He will Always provide us a way to accomplish it. He is always there and He is always listening. 

I gave my talk yesterday. They told me that I just needed to talk on whatever I felt the ward needed to hear. Ha joy. No, but actually I was surprised how easy it was for me to talk up there. Usually I get soooo nervous but when I got up I just looked out and I remembered my talk and I said things that weren't even in my talk and I just did it. Yeah, it wasn't prefect Spanish but it went pretty well and I felt the Spirit and that's what matters. Afterwards a little 10 year old boy came up to me and said ¨congratulations! Your Spanish is getting so much better! I just loved your talk and it was so sweet.¨ Awww it was so cute. He is such a sweet kid. 

I just love the people here. They are so nice and the food here is Soooo good. Wow its really good, haha. 

Anyways, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Hermana Grover

p.s since my comp and I are both Americans and have blond hair...well lets just say we've had some pretty funny experiences with people in the street. We were in the central city and a guy came up to us just saying you guys are so beautiful, where are you going, where do you live, oh my goodness you are just So gorgeous can I go to your church, etc. it was a little freaky and then he grabbed my hand and tried to kiss it and then grabbed my comps shoulder and we freaked out a little bit and walked away just laughing. It was so weird haha. But yeah its pretty funny. Don't worry nothing bad is going to happen! :)

Special Transfers

So my comp and I went to the mission home last Saturday and we lived there for a week! Because my comp couldn't work and they wanted her to recuperate well. So we did no work for the whole week. I hung out with the Presidents wife, Hermana George. She is the funniest lady ever. 

We wanted to make brownies so we started making them and then we checked her oven and the gas wasn't lighting. So we were like okay lets go to the mission office and use the elder´s oven. We went there and they had no gas in their oven either. So then she said Oh the church is never locked lets go use the oven there! So we go to the church, we get there and then realized that we left the matches at home haha...so she was so irritated and said I cant believe this is happening right now! We go through all this and finally we get an oven that has gas and we forget the matches hahah. Then she got an idea..haha she turned on the stove which is a fire stove and she grabbed a napkin, stuck it in the flames and threw it into the oven and it lit and then she jumped up and down and said, ¨Ha! They don't call me a cowgirl for nothin!¨ haha it was cute. She´s from Wyoming. Anyways just wanted to share that quick story with you. 

So on Friday we packed all our things and were getting ready to leave to go back to our area because my comp was feeling better. The President pulled me aside into his office and said, ¨Hermana Grover, we are going to transfer you because I feel that's what you need. You are struggling and very sad and I want my missionaries to be happy and you have endured your trials well. So he told me that my new companion was Hermana Knight and I´d be leaving that day to my new area.¨ Wow. I cant express how much relief I felt. So Hermana Knight´s companion is now with Hermana Tejeda in Chiapa de Corzo. I am now in Moctezuma 2. Its in the city Tuxtla and we are like 10-15 minutes away from the Temple. Hna Knight is American and is from Utah. She just finished 8 months on the mission on Sunday. She´s totally awesome and I am so excited and grateful to be with her. We both needed it and we are working so hard. I finally got out to work on Friday for the first time in almost 3 weeks or so. Oh my it has been the best 4 days on my mission yet!! I can truly say that I don't want this time to go by fast. We have already been seeing little miracles everyday and its incredible what obedience can do! 

The members in this ward are just the most loving members ever! There is so much unity and I love it! But sadly...they asked me to give a talk. AH! I really had a feeling though haha. So I´ll be giving my first talk in Spanish this Sunday on whatever I feel the ward needs to hear and for 10-15 min. I´m beyond nervous haha. But that's alright I´ll be fine. Anyways I hope everyone is doing well and keeping the commandments of the Lord! 

Love you all!

Hermana Grover

Miracle

Hello everyone! So something I learned this last week that is pretty special to me...I was always expecting my mission to be something incredible and always seeing miracles. I knew that if I worked hard I would see miracles. Er....a little different than what I expected. Anyways so I've been going through some rough times here on my mission so far. I have worked as hard as I know I could and trying everyday but I wasn't seeing any miracles and just felt like I wasn't giving enough effort or my offer to The Lord and to the work just simply wasn't enough. It was a struggle and it seemed as if I was not only not seeing miracles but not seeing the results from my labors. We've had baptism after baptism fall and I've never spoken perfect Spanish nor ever said something that changed someone's life or something like that...I know my mind was centered a lot on me and not on my investigators. Anyways all this stuff just really started weighing down on me and drove me to my knees. I just couldn't do it any more and it was almost unbearable. I just felt like my weaknesses were engulfing me and I just couldn't go any further. So I said alright I really can't do this and I need your help in every single aspect. I have weaknesses and flaws that I just really need your help. A little after that I started seeing, I guess my eyes were opened spiritually. No it's not like all my investigators were accepting baptismal dates or I spoke Spanish perfectly...I started to realize that the miracle was in me. But I didn't see the miracle until after I humbled myself and truly knew that I couldn't do this work alone. Not one bit. That's when I realized the miracle was me.the fact that The Lord strengthened me to withstand all these problems for so long, to work so hard through my weaknesses and the amount of Spanish I know right now on my mission. I promise you my mind is being quickened by The Lord. I'm learning faster than I ever have before. That is the miracle. It wasn't something I expected, but it was far better than I could imagine. Just like Elisha told me a little bit ago. The Lord answers prayers in three ways. 1. Actually I don't remember the first one haha sorry. But 2. Not yet and 3. I have something better in mind. The third one was how I felt The Lord answered my prayer. This experience definitely strengthened my understanding/planted a seed that prayer works and that someone really is listening. I also learned that The Lord really does carry you through and helps you out especially with your faults. Lastly, I learned that humility is the key to everything. After we humble ourselves He will help us and strengthen us and our weaknesses. I know this church is true. I know prayer works but only in His timing. But we need to show diligence and obedience and wait with patience. Yeah, this church, the Church of Jesus Christ, is not easy. He asks a lot from us. In reality it's not that much, but we are imperfect beings and some of the things He asks of us have to do with our weaknesses. That's why it's hard, because we have flaws or sometimes lazy so we don't want or like to keep praying everyday, reading the scriptures everyday, going to church every week, serving, etc because He isn't answering our prayers or we aren't seeing the blessings when and how we want them. This life is about progressing! Trying the best you can and relying on The Lord the whole way through. But how can we progress if our weaknesses are not being challenged/tested? That's one of the reasons why. He gave us commandments. 

Now, it's one thing to read my experience but it's a whole other story to actually feel and experience it for yourself. So, I hope that you desire to progress and choose one thing you're struggling with that really just hits home with your weakness and try your hardest to keep that commandment. So that you may feel and see for yourself the blessings or learn something valuable from The Lord. I promise you, you will learn something if you try. I'm warning you now, it might be very very difficult but don't give up. Just keep taking a step of faith. If it gets to a point where you feel you can go no further, get on your knees and pray your heart out to be able to keep going. Not to take the burden away, but to keep going. Because you can keep going. If you have His help you can. But to be truly honest I hope everyone gets to that point where you feel you can go no further and you get on your knees and pray. Because that's when you truly humble yourself and rely completely on The Lord and that's when you see the miracle. 

Anyways I love you all and truly I am grateful to everyone of you. Every time I get a letter from you it's Exactly what I needed to hear. I could not still be on my mission if it wasn't from your support, love, and prayers for me. Everyone of you is very special to me. Thank you!!!

Hermana Grover

This week was...haha. Right after writing my last letter we went home to get our things to head off to our lessons and my comp was having extreme pain in her stomach. So we actually ended up going to the hospital that night and didnt get home till 11 or so. Turns out her intestines were 3x the normal size. The next day we went back so she could have more medication for the pain and they told us that we needed to stay there over night. So we stayed there in the hospital for more than 24 hrs. I tell you what, staying over night in the hospital is one thing but being a missionary and staying overnight is a whole other story! You cant watch movies, listen to music, and even leave the room...haha I felt like I was in an insane asyllum where they lock you from the outside haha. It was horrific! And to top things off we couldnt go home to get any of our things so I was in a skirt the whole time. I had rather worn hospital clothes for those 24 hrs haha. It was an experience :) Since Im done with my training I could actually go out and visit our investigators but no members could go with me. THis whole entire week Ive been in the house with my comp. No members were available. So just lots of studying! That was my week! Sorry its really boring. My comp is still really bad and she might have to have surgery. If she does she will be going home because the surgery is a 3 month recovery. So we are going to a specialist to really figure out the problem either this Tuesday or Wednesday. So please pray for her that everything will be alright and she will be able to finish her mission! She only has almost 6 months left! 

Love you all so much! Thank you for your letters and prayers! They mean the world to me! I dont know what Id do without you all! 

Hermana Grover

LOVE is What Truly Can Change a Person

Hola!

Ok what did I learn this week...

What ive learned this far on my mission is love. Love was from the beginning. God loved us so he created a plan to come to the earth. He loved us and gave us families to love us within the walls of our homes and relationships in our families. God loves us so He sent His Son to atone for our sins. Christ volunteered, atoned, and died on the cross because He loves us. So do you think love is important? Absolutely. God loves all of His children equally. Every person on the Earth is a good person. Everyone has the light of Christ. God did not create a bad Spirit. Every single person is important to him. But we all have weaknesses and opposition in all things. So lots of people lose their wat because they dont have the Gospel or dont understand sincerelly the consequences of their actions, or horrible things have happened and they get angry or dont understand Gods plan/will. But usually when we think of a person that has major problems with addictions or has been horrible to us, whatever usually its because things have occured in their life caused from the lack of love. Seriously love is so strong. 

How do you feel when someone loves you? Just grand right? Almost as if you could accomplish/do anything in the world. Love is encouragement and you feel true joy. True happiness.

Our purpose in this life is to be happy. But how can we be happy if there is So much opposition and saddness in just about everything?? Well God gave us commandments and promised us that if we are obedient to His commandments He will bless us. Those blessings is one way of showing His love.

What Im really trying to get at is you are important and you are here on this earth for a reason. You have weaknesses but you also have values, strengths, and abilities that God has given you so you can find joy in your life/love your life and bless and love the people around you. 

Ive struggled on my Mission a lot lately because everyone says, oh youre incredible and the Best missionary if you train right after you finish training. So I started feeling bad and wow Im not a good missoinary etc. Negative thoughts. But what I kept thinking was well doesnt Heavenly Father love everyone equally? Does He really think of people as good, better, and best? No. He doesnt have favorites. I believe there are manby reasons why people are called to serve missions, relief society president, bishop, whatever calling, and its not because He thinks anyone is better than anyone else. Lots of times its because of our obedience to His commandments, in the BoM it says the prophets of old were called because of their faith, sometimes Heavenly Father wants to turn your weaknesses into strengths, or He needs your specific talents in a certain calling, He called Enoch and Moses and they had speech impediments and were not the most favorable of men, Saul or ¨Paul¨ and He was trying to seek to destroy God´s church, etc. There are many reasons why people are called but lots of times we put ourselves down and think its because we arent good enough. 

Dont ever think people are better than you and dont ever think youre better than them. Dont lose sight of Who You Are. A son/daughter of God. In Matthew 4:3 Satan tempts Christ and tries to question His true identity. Its something Satan works really hard on all of us. But the scrip says, IF thou be the Son of God. Why would he tempt us with our identity? Because when we lose sight of who we are we lose sight of our importance and lose the feelings of love that God has for us and the love from anyone else. Then saddness enters our life and thats when great problems occur. 

Love is important  and is in every aspect of the Gospel. I believe love is strong and is what truly can change a person. When you point out someones flaws and constantly tell them what they need to do/fix, it brings them down. But if you love them and tell them their positives and what they are good at, it will raise them up and they will be more likely to change or be a better person. They´ll have more of a want, a desire. Does God always point out your weaknesses and makes you feel bad? No He loves us and our imperfectness and this love is what drives us to Want to change. I had an experience with my investigator, Faustino. We kept telling him he needs to do this and this and why isnt he attending church etc. But towards the end of the lesson I thought why are acting like he isnt a good person because hes not going to church, maybe he doesnt understand the importance clearly enough or who knows but he is still a greart person. He is reading the book of mormon he prays everyday and everything. So I told him his positives and tried to make him understand his importance to us and that we are teaching him so that he can truly be happy in this life. He just started crying and said thank you! Right then I really saw how powerful love is and how everyone needs to feel loved. I know my investigators will progress faster/better and listen to us more intently if we truly love them and raise them up. 

Anyways you might have already known all that but it was cool for me to learn. I hope you all have a great week. Love you all!

Hermana Grover