Leaving St. George

Maddie and her proud parents

When she gets back, Preston will be too big to sit on her lap!

Everyone looks pretty happy, even though it's 5:30 in the morning!

Too bad there isn't "blink correction" for this picture...said Liz, Preston, and Mom...

Saying goodbye at the gate

And she's on her way!

Casa 13

August 22, 2013

Oh my lanta where to begin. I’m famished. The food here is either going to kill me from starvation or from the… well you obviously know. I really thought I wasn’t a picky eater. Well, I stand corrected. I live in casa 13. In my room there is just Hermana L and I.  The first night we had roomates, but one had such good Spanish that she got moved to the 2 week program and left her companion to join a trio.  Casa 13 is known as the cockroach house. We were swarming with them the first few days, and we had to be fumigated.  Isn’t Mexico great? Hermana L is my companion, she’s from Springville, Utah, she played softball at Western Nebraska, loves sports, being one of the guys, hates girls,and speaks almost fluent Spanish.

BUT ANYWAYS I’m in District 13E.  It consists of Elder H, Elder M, Elder D, Elder A (district leader), Elder H, Elder H, Elder T, Elder W, Elder N, and Elder S. These guys are a crazy bunch and basically never do anything when they are supposed to, they’re the closest thing I have to family so I’m learning to love them.  Well I already do, but yeah..Our days feel never ending.  From 6 to 10: 30 we are constantly going, studying, teaching(in Spanish), on repeat.

On our 3rd day we got to teach an investigator, not a real one, she’s actually going to start teaching us tomorrow, but we thought she was. Like I mentioned earlier Hermana L is good at Spanish so lucky we have survived the past 6 discussions with no thanks to me.  So yeah spanish is hard and I cry about it almost every day. PRAY FOR ME PLEASE.

So back to my crazy district, yesterday they caught a hummingbird and it died in the box they kept it in, so there’s that.  It flew in my face, and I almost had a heart attack.  These boys are the younger brothers I’m so glad I was NOT blessed with. But on Monday we were all feeling kind of homesick so Elder H had this bright idea to do a "talk show" "late night with Elder H" and you know what? I ain’t even sorry I was the second guest on the show. Haha, it was a time where basically the class could ask any(appropriate) question to the one being interviewed and I’m gonna be straight with you, it was hilarious. It was during language study time though so Elder A finally flipped the lid on it, but I don’t regret it.  It was nice for me to kinda get to know the guys in my district, as weird as they are.

The weather here is so weird. Weird being good.  It’s perfect weather. It’s not too hot or not too cold, we don’t have a heater, we don’t have AC.  We leave the doors and windows open just to circulate the air, but it’s not bad at all. Also at night we get the prettiest view of the houses on the hill (you won’t get a picture though because were only allowed to talk pictures on p day. Maybe next week? For the first week we kept hearing what sounded like gun shots all day long, followed by sirens. Here’s a relief: only SOME of them are gunshots. I guess there’s a hospital near and whenever a baby is born they do fireworks, whenever someone dies they fire off a cannon, what a relief huh? It really was, because our classroom is right by the exit/entrance so we were legitimately scared. Also there was a tiny earthquake last week, we had to evacuate the buildings, they’re so worried about aftershock and all that.

This morning we went to the temple and we feel like we were chickens running with our heads chopped off. We had a devotional on Tuesday and the man who spoke told us to pray for ourselves to see if Heavenly Father Loves us, does He really have a body of flesh and bones, is He really our Father, does He know who I am and does He love me as a father loves His children. I thought I knew these things but after praying for days and receiving a true answer by the Spirit today I am telling you, you have GOT to do this yourself. I was overwhelmed with love and knowledge it was one of the greatest feelings I have ever received.  I was brought to tears. I challenge you all to pray to find these answers yourself. Also while I’m at it with that devotional read 1 Nephi 8. Decide now what kind of person you are going to be, be the ones who fall to the ground when you see Jesus Christ. I haven’t read any emails besides this first one mom sent me, but I will be able to print them out and read them later, just know that I love you all, I know that I am serving the Lord and doing what He asked of me. It’s hard, but nothing worth having is given to you. You have to work and find out for yourselves, I love and miss you all but would not rather be anywhere else.  I love you all!

Love always,

Hermana Groves

Arrival at the Mexico City MTC

August 15, 2013, 9:59 p.m. 

MEXICO CITY MTC!!!

Hey Family!

Guess who actually gets to contact her family the first day in being in the MTC. ME! Also Im gonna apologize right now for my bad grammar. This keyboard is different and I cant find the question mark apostrophe ect. Well today was a busy day as you know. After being up at 2 30 I was basically a grumpy mess all day. Im sorry I showed little to no emotion this morning, but i knew once i started crying i wouldnt stop. I didnt start! all thanks to the cute girl in the st. george airport who talked to me and bore her testimony and all that fun stuff she was really supportive, i dont know her but i love her haha. so after the st g flight i met an elder serving in my mission and i follwed him to his terminal.. WELL he was flying to phoenix and i was flying to texas. I almost missed my flight! haha but then i met some nice young elders who were one the same flights as me there on out. They were young and i kinda felt like their mom haha. the dallas flight had a crying baby the whole time, right in front of me! so that was unfortunate. my trip to mexico was fine, nothing too crazy, i got two seats to myself. But at the airport when we were waiting for the missionaries from other cities Big Time Rush came through(that was for you Liz) it was pretty cool. Well Im here now, dont have much else to report. The city of Mexico City is glorious. I wish i had more to share but my letter time is taking away from my dinner time haha I dont know my P day yet so be patient haha my companion is Lexi Lister (the only girl from that fb group that i am friends with. cool) haha I love you, plEASE SEND THIS AROUND. lOVE ALWAYS

Hermana Groves

 

ps i dont have permission to read my other emails so im sorry that i didnt respond

Photoshoot

I was so grateful when one of the young women in my ward said she'd be willing to do my missionary pictures because.. well I am cheap and don't want to pay for a photographer to take 5 pictures of me so a big thank you to Olivea Bell I am in your debt! (Until I make you cookies) so here are a few of my favorite. Enjoy. :)

Decision to Serve a Mission

      For those of you who are reading this and have not read my other blog, great! And if you read my non-mission blog, this is literally the exact same post, so save yourself some time because I'm just copying it and sharing my story with those who have not heard it before and who are strictly interested in the mission aspect in my life. 



       I know once I make it publicly known that I'm going on a mission a lot of people will want to know what changed my mind from "Hey RM's come to Mama!" to "I am so ready to serve a full time mission!" because I know I seemed very set in my ways. But what better way to tell everyone without having to tell them all a million times? Exactly.

       In October of 2012 (this past year) President Thomas S. Monson made an announcement in the LDS General Conference saying that the mission age for women had been moved from 21 to 19 and the  
young men from 19 to 18. I heard this news and I was shocked! Let's face it, my 19th birthday was coming up in the next few months and suddenly I had to start thinking if a mission was for me? Man, I had NEVER wanted to serve a mission. All throughout my life in church or with family people would ask "Are you going on a mission someday?" and all the boys would always respond "YES!" and even some of the girls, but  for me I really could care less. I never thought that it would be anything I would be interested in. But when they made that announcement I had a gut feeling, the Spirit prompting me that I should go. Like I said, it was never in my plan to serve a mission, and I'm a stubborn girl, so I just suppressed my feelings. I always knew deep down that I should go so when people would say "So you putting your papers in?" or "So Maddie, you going on a mission?" I would always respond really sassy and say something like "Just because the age requirement changed doesn't mean that my desire to go on a mission has" or "Girls aren't required to go on a mission, it's a personal choice" because I didn't want anyone to influence me or my decision to go.

         I was so annoyed with people pressuring me that I posted a status on facebook basically telling people to stop bugging me about going, "I am so proud of all of my friends going on missions, girls and boys, but I am not a horrible person because I personally choose not to serve. It's a choice not a requirement, I'm still a worthy young woman who makes good choices in life. Plus, who are all the RM's gonna date if all the ladies are gone? That's right boys, come to mama!"  I wanted people to stop pressuring me. I mean I did the math, all the girls my age, the year older than me and the ones already preparing for missions would be gone. Most of the worthy girls anyways, so my chances of finding a top notch, hottie status RM were pretty good. And if I at least found someone to date  I could use "Well I'm dating this guy and it's getting pretty serious.." as an excuse to not serve a mission. Don't mess with the Lord. He knows what he wants.


         Meanwhile I was still getting prompted, in the back of my mind "Go on a mission" just kept coming to me. And I did something that I regret. I wanted to stop getting the prompting, so I stopped praying, reading my scriptures, paying my tithing, and just paying attention to God's hand in my life. And it worked. I lost the Holy Ghost for a little while. Things got hard.  I found myself having no motivation, I realized I hated my major. I did not want to take drawing classes for the rest of my college career because I hate drawing and refuse to do it in my spare time, even if it means getting better. I signed up for Graphic Design for crap's sake, let me touch a computer! My friends were all finding promising things for their future and they were keeping busy. I hated my job, I've worked there for almost 3 years and I feel like nothing has come of it. Things were getting hard at home as well. I felt like anything I said would break all ice and make tension all around.  My dating plan was failing. I went on lots of dates and I had guys like me. But I didn't want to date the guys that wanted to date me and the ones I wanted to date made it abundantly clear they did not want anything to do with me. So here I am. Stuck in the crossroads wondering what I should do with my life. Staying in the same place, not really anywhere to go from here. And this went on for a few months, I was almost depressed, but being the stubborn person I am I refused to ask for any help. 


             One day while I came to the parking lot after school to find that someone had written "SLUT" on my car, this made me very upset, considering the fact that I hadn't even kissed a guy while in my college experience, let alone do anything to be considered a slut. That day I didn't feel like I was nothing, I was nothing. After holding in my tears at work all day, I went home and just cried. I basically had a pity party for myself.

      Then I started thinking about who I am and what I represented. Who I am and who people thought I were were two different things. So I just broke down in prayer, pouring my heart out and asking the Lord for help because I was so lost in the world. In that moment I got a strong prompting to read my Patriarchal Blessing and I stumbled upon a few phrases I had never noticed before " Go forth and be one who shall speak out unto other of those truths which have come unto you...", "Yea, to be a missionary force. And you as an individual, shall join in that force with strength." Man, I thought I couldn't be producing more tears, but after reading that I cried probably more than I have in my whole life. It was then that I knew that I had to serve a mission, without a doubt, how could I turn down such divine revelation? I fasted and prayed about it and was told, yes, this is indeed what I need to do. So I told my parents, and I've slowly made my way through family and friends since then. And tonight, I have an interview with the bishop to start the process, I don't think I've ever been more excited and nervous at the same time.


       I know that Heavenly Father would do anything to get all of his children back to him someday. I am just glad that not only can I be a member missionary but soon I will be a full time missionary, bringing lost sheep unto the fold. I could not be more grateful for the age change in missionaries, I like to think that the Lord was thinking with me in mind when he sent that revelation to the prophet. I am so glad to be humbled through my trials so I can learn to better myself for the future. I'm thankful for you, person reading this, because you have probably made an impact on me one way or another in my life.

        And for the sake of saving posts I'll just leave my mission call opening right here. :)