Maplewood 2

May 5th, 2014

Well another week in Maplewood 2, or what's left of it! Yesterday they changed the ward boundaries and we lost a bunch of our members :( holy cow, we thought when our ward boundary changed that was bad... These people do not live within 5 minutes of eachother like we did.. try like 40. So I'll be more grateful. 

This week I learned that I watched a lot more spongebob before my mission than I thought.. I didn't realize it before because Hermana Bonhard would always quote it with me.. Sister Ritter? No. I probably quote spongebob like 4 or 5 times a day. Don't I just feel so mature? haha but I found my soul mate investigator...(hahaha) we taught this guy Jeff last week, he was a referral from visiting mormon.org and we knocked on his door to find him wearing a shirt with cats flying on pizzas through outer space. This man is probably 50-60 has a baby and the shirt was at least one size smaller than he is. He lives in a hotel and we had to sit on a bed while he leaned against a dresser to teach him. I feel like this description doesn't even explain the sight we saw when we met him. Because we really thought he was weird and he was, but not as much as we had originally thought. Turns out he's actually read the Bible 4 or 5 times, it's not a joke either, he quotes lots of scriptures and he's really interested in finding out the truth. 

We're also teaching this less active who is having a really hard time. She's addicted to dope so much that she actually prostitutes herself so she can get more drugs. It breaks my heart, Satan is working really hard on her and she has the desire to change, she just needs to act on that desire. We taught her from Eph. the other day about putting on the armor of God and we're working on drawing her a picture with her wearing the armor of God to protect herself from all ungodliness. We know it all starts with the basics of scripture study and prayer but it's so much more than that. I know that as we work to arm ourselves we will be able to fight against temptation because Jesus Christ gives us the strength that we need. 

Yesterday I also saw Brother and Sister Harris (that used to be in the Cedar Hills Ward) Sister Harris gave me a big hug and that was really sweet of her. I'm having a hard time adjusting back to english, but I was born into it, I should be able to survive through it haha. I can't think of anything else, we chalked again and my companion is very quiet. She wishes I would just shut up. I'm working on it. But apparently she doesn't like when I make up songs to her in the car? PFT. Who doesn't like my songs? Haha anyways I hope you guys have a great week. Love you all! 

Hermana Groves

In flippin' no man's land.

April 28th, 2014

Okay so that title is a little deceiving but so were my thoughts when I was being transferred. Which I was.. I'm still in Houston but I have been switched to an English area. Remember a few weeks ago when I made a comment about the disobedient sister missionaries that got sent home? (well if I didn't I am now, like 5 english sisters went home for disobedience) so president had to make all of the sister areas bigger and take out a few and yes about 3 of us Spanish sisters were switched to English, temporarily. Not gonna lie, I was a little surprised but I gotta do what I gotta do. So now I'm senior companion and this new ward is hard. You wanna know why? Well a majority of the ward are at Baylor and UT doing their residencies so basically our whole ward is medical students. That's not the problem though, I mean they have cute wives who are willing to come out with us and feed us every day but the problem is.. The babies! I kid you not, in Relief Society yesterday every other woman had a baby on her lap. That's not even fair, because I can't hold them and they're adorable, honestly, I just want to pinch their cheeks. So that's a major distraction. Now I'm thinking too much about my future and to be frank, I don't like it. I'm a missionary, not a teenage girl planning out her fantasy life. Haha. 

My new companion's name is Sister Ritter, she's from Utah and is a really nice girl, this area is really big and she was only here for one transfer so we're trying to get a handle on it. She's been out for a little over a year and goes home in July. We're working a lot with a recent convert named Cheryl and if she gets a family name we can go with her to the temple on Saturday. We hope that's the case. The work is a little bit different here on the English side. I'm used to just doing a lot of street contacting but here they work mainly with referrals, which can be good and bad. I'm taking sister Ritter out on the bikes today though so we'll definitely meet some people ;)

There was an elder's quorum family bbq on saturday and we were invited and I thought this was funny so I'll share. Everytime someone showed up they would say "I need a doctor" and everyone would just start laughing. Doctor man humor. It was almost ridiculous but I couldn't stop laughing. haha. 

I said goodbye to all my loved ones last week and that was hard but I hope to keep in contact with them. I don't even remember how to pray in English. It's a joke. Haha but I don't have a whole lot more to say, I hope you have a great week. I love you all. If you would like to write me at my apartment for the next 5 weeks (at least) my address will be .. 

1800 El Paseo #1303

 Houston, Texas 77054

Love you all. Keep strong and carry on.

Sister Groves

Happy Late Easter!

April 21st, 2014

We're all fixed! I feel like this is something that needs to be shared especially because last week everything was.. well.. broken. Haha so we now have working water, toilet, our floor isn't leaking, our AC is fixed and we got a new vacuum, the blessings that come from patience eh? Well I got a call this morning from the district leader and what I said last week was confirmed. I'm being transferred! This one is leaving the nest. I'm actually terrified but you never know what will come if you don't go out and explore right? Hermana Bonhard is staying here and taking over the area, she's also going to become the Sister Training Leader for our district. We have a whole day stacked tomorrow so we can say our goodbyes, Yolanda called this morning and we had a little sob fest cause we won't be able to see her again before I go. She's like a Grandma to me, it really breaks my heart. 

This last week we attempted to teach Rosaurio how to ride a bike. We don't know our spanish bike terms so that was a hilarious experience. I have a video so it should be funny to show after my mission. Haha. I don't even remember learning how to ride a bike? Is it really as hard as she was making it look? Haha I guess so! 

Yolanda made us these cute flower pots with a scripture about the resurrection to give to the people we teach for Easter, she put them in a huge basket, that is probably half my size. Imagine riding on a bike with a huge basket. Well you can't haha so we hopped on the bus. It was late on Saturday night and there was this little girl sitting in front of us. She turned around with a really puzzled look on her face and said "You are you the Easter bunny? You gots some eggs in that basket?" we laughed and said no but we had to literally run back to our apartment to reach our curfew afterwards so we were running like little rabbits taking turns running with that giant basket haha. 

I can't think of anything else that happened this week, we basically just were biking around from side to side working up a sweat haha sorry I don't have more to report. I hope you all had a great Easter. I love you all! Have a great week!

so what's not broken?

April 15th, 2014

Oh my lanta. What a week this was!Haha but seriously. I better be recieving some major blessings this coming week! Haha where to begin... 

This month the Christlike attribute I'm working on is humility and more specifically, humility to church leaders and you know what? I was rockin it, I was doing really well until the big guy came along.. On Monday night we got a call from the Zone Leaders telling us that we were going to get our car taken away... On Tuesday, our area is temporarly a biking area. But that's not it either. Apparently we're the largest biking area in the mission, sweet..It really bummed me out because we already had appointments set for Tuesday night, a stacked night, too bad some of them were on opposite corners of our area. That's right, Tuesday night we booked it on our bikes 16 miles in about 25 minutes. We were dying. and then we had to ride 8 back to our apartment. Oh you think that's all do you? Well it turns out our cold water is also the only water functioning in our apartment. That's right, no hot water it's not even warm! So for the past 8 days we've only had cold water. Fear not, after the 2nd time showering in basically falling ice I boiled some pots of water and have been giving myself sponge baths. I'm disgusting. I'm fully aware haha. You gotta do what you gotta do. Don't even get me started on the kitchen floor that's leaking because of the broken water heater.. We step on it and water comes out of the cracks, so you know what that means, wet socks. Haha they're working on it as we speak so don't worry about it.  So there was all that. Plus P-day was hectic because we don't have a car and we needed to get our vacuum fixed and it was raining buckets, so on so forth. Hence me emailing today. 

The familia Calasar isn't getting baptised this week and it makes me bummed cause when I talked to president yesterday he told me that I'm probably getting transferred next week. So I finally have a golden family and don't know if I'll be able to see them be baptized. But we'll work it out, I'm basically adopted into the family. Haha the kids love me, the mom and grandma too. (Still gotta work on the dad.. but he'll come). We went to Mia Montanos first birthday party the other day and that was really fun! Most of the ward was there, also spanish people love blow up toys. Just so you know. Haha  Other than that my spanish is slowly but surely picking up. Oh and I cut 6 inches off my hair. Nothing completely crazy though. I don't have a whole lot more to share but I love you all and hope you have a good week! 

Hermana Groves 

General Conference

April 7th, 2014

Hello everyone!

How did everyone like conference? I loved it! Especially Elder Holland's talk about standing up for what is right. I was counting all my blessings that I was not that sister missionary who got mashed potatoes thrown in her hair. That sounds rough. I probably would have cried. But he was right when he said: "the bumper sticker phrase 'What would Jesus do?'  doesn't always end with a popular result." Because in my mission I've seen a lot of people criticize me, put me down, call me uneducated, basically anything you can think of, we've seen some type of it. As living representatives of Jesus Christ you would think we would have to suffer only a portion of what he suffered. Sometimes we do, but the thing is that with that, we can pray for all the strength that we need from him, because He has suffered everything for each and every one of us. It's incredible to me that we can receive the things we ask of of him. 

Another talk I absolutely loved was by Linda S. Reeves about the dangers of pornography, we actually have a problem with a lot of the people we teach with this and it makes me incredibly sad. It reminds me of this video http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1092112456001 that I cry like everytime we watch because it is literally heart breaking. But she said that we can stay away from that, not only by putting blocks on computers but also with family scripture study, prayer, family home evening, family temple work and that we can escape the trap by having the desire to change our hearts and our desires. I don't know why, but this talk really just struck home with me. 

As for this week, it was busy. We went on 2 exchanges I had Hermana Ricks and Hermana Jones with me for two seperate days and Hermana B was down in Bay City with Hermana Rick's companion for 2 days. So I got back to my normal routine of running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. We also had to report a case of child abuse this week because we could hear it going on behind the door at an apartment complex. That is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I actually went up to the door and knocked on it, they never answered the door but we didn't doubt calling the cops. Sometimes it takes all the courage in the world to do the right thing, and we definitely had angels with us. I know that when we do the right thing Heavenly Father is watching over us by all means, we are all His children and he cares a lot about us each individually. More than we can imagine. 

I love you all very much and hope you have a great week.

What was your favorite conference talk, and why?

Keep the faith!

Hermana Groves

pics: zone meeting

me braiding Jashly Calasar's hair

Apparently I'm the only one who gets sunburnt

March 31

Good mornin' good mornin'!

Hey ya'll (That's about as Texan as my accent is getting...)!

How are you guys doing? My week has been pretty good.  We've been keeping busy with our people we teach. But I wanna tell you about a miracle that we saw this week. Or two. Or three. Wherever my mind lets me go. 

First: I don't know if you guys remember me talking about Ramon my first transfer here? Well, he was my very first investigator lesson, so I'm a little attached to him. We lost him when he was evicted and didn't have a phone. Well, I have a love for him, and he was ready to be baptized.  He stopped smoking and drinking, but  we just couldn't find him. I have been praying for months and months to find him. Well. Miracle. We did. We were leaving Saturday afternoon to go to the Women's Conference, and some car was stopped in front of us for like 5 minutes, and we couldn't go anywhere. My patience was being tried. BUT when we were going down the street Ramon crosses the street right in front of us. I was like, "Hermana Bonhard you better pull this car over, or I am getting out of it! " We pulled over and I RAN over saying, "Ramon! Ramon!" He turned around and had a giant smile on his face. We asked him how he was doing, and he said he was having a hard time, and he wants us to come and teach him. That was literally a testimony of prayer to me. We may pray for something, but it's all about the Lord's timing when he wants something to happen. He'll make it happen. SO COOL!

We also arranged for a soccer game for some members and investigators in our area. We were going on spanish time so no one showed up for the first hour. But slowly but surely we had 4 families there. WOOOOHH! haha we were hoping for like 10, but what can you do? Haha. Our investigator Vicente (his girlfriend is a member) and their 2 kids came, and he had fun! I was so glad.   He needed to see a funner side of us because, well,  we want him to stop drinking, and we want them to get married.  We want him to be baptized but most importantly, we want them to go to the temple and be sealed as a family forever. He knows that, and after a really powerful lesson on Thursday he's really thinking about it. He just knows he's gonna have to change his lifestyle, and that's gonna be the hard thing. He's getting baptized before I leave this area. I'm not leaving until he is. 

Women's conference was great! (We watched the first half in Spanish though, so I didn't take any notes, haha, but really spiritual. Go read on LDS.org if you haven't already.)

I can't really think of anything else that happened this week but just know I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Keep the faith,

Hermana Groves

enjoy haha

Once I stopped spitting missionary profanities...

March 24


Sorry this is later than usual. Usually we go to the office at our apartment complex and email for a half hour (write to president and then do our big emails), and then for the rest of the hour we chat and do that fun stuff. We tried to switch it up today and go to the library first. Well, it just made the day even longer. Haha because we went back to the complex and they were renovating the computer café (booo), so here we are back at the library. Sorry for everyone I was chatting with earlier.

With that being said... Hey everyone! How's your week going? This week was really good! It got super hot really fast though. I swear we were up to 90 one day. Everyone keeps saying it's gonna be a really hot summer.  Hotter than usual. Dang. I guess that's life eh? So while the temperature has been nice, we've just been biking our hearts out. This week I was yet again a stereotypical missionary, the one they would show in a movie like "The RM."  You wanna know why? Well, we were riding down the street just enjoying the warmth when "whoooosh," I was overshadowed by a huge wave of water. I was drenched. I kid you not, it was like  a movie with a person who has bad luck; a car drove through a puddle, and I was drenched with sewage water for a good hour. Aaaaaah, living the life. Haha. Once I stopped spitting missionary profanities (flip, dang, crud) I was fine!

  

The adventures on bikes are always fun. We were a little early for an appointment so we were just riding around this apartment complex trying to find people to talk to and this dog runs past us. The owner yells "Hey can you grab that dog for me?" Hermana Bonhard hopped off her bike and started chasing this little dog around. For 10 minutes. I kid you not. She had her helmet on and was trying to charm this dog. It thought she was playing with it. You probably can't imagine what I did, can you? Absolutely nothing. I just sat on my bike in awe that my companion is chasing this dog around, I am a truth telling woman, and it was 10 minutes she chased this dog. BUT we actually got a return appointment with the guy whose dog it was, and guess what. THEY SPEAK SPANISH. YAY! haha Blessings for being.... Bold? Baha I don't know

  

We talk the Calasar family 5 times this week. FIVE. They are quickly progressing towards their baptismal date! I'm so pumped for them! We just gotta get them to church, and we're in business. Pray for them on my behalf will ya? We also taught English class this week. That was humorous. I can't speak English, I can't speak Spanish! Man, I felt bad for these little Hispanics.

Yesterday we had a huge Noche de Hogar with Yolanda and some friends of hers. It was really crowded but it was lots of fun. We taught the restoration with cups and played a game with it. The crowd went wild. Not really, but they made us feel like we were all that and a bag of chips haha.

  We're planning on having a giant game of soccer this week with all the people we teach (members and investigators); we're excited! We think it will be a good way to get some Amistad going. I can't think of much else to write, but just know I love you all very much! I hope you have a great week and keep on keepin on!

Hermana Groves