May 19th, 2014

This will probably be short cause I waited until the last 20 minutes of my email to write my group email. 

This week we took a mission temple trip! My first time in the temple for 9 months! It was so awesome, I went with a group of sisters. We woke up at 4 drove to the temple started our special session at like 6 and then afterwards we had a Q&A with President and Sister Ashton and then the temple president, President Crane and his wife. It was a really cool experience but very sacred ,I learned a lot about the order of the temple and why things are the way they are. President challenged us to pray in advance over what our true characters are and who we really are.  I learned a lot about myself as I tried to find my true character but nothing stood out to me FOR me. I was enlightened with everything everyone else was sharing but I couldn't find it for me. Afterwards I was discouraged, I didn't understand why everyone suddenly felt their divine character or purpose but I couldn't find mine. The next day I was a little discouraged and decided to pray really hard for it. I studied the scriptures and then suddenly... Lightbulb. Patriarchal blessing. As I read I picked up many of the characteristics we had spoke about: courage, excitement to have knowledge, leadership, charity, dicerning between right and wrong, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. The reason I didn't receive an answer in the temple is because I already had one. I just needed to open my eyes and heart a little bit.

So that was an awesome experience. I wish I could go back and do it again, the temple president told us that it was a once in a lifetime thing and that we probably wouldn't have that oportunity again. 

You wanna hear a funny story? Good I'm gonna tell you one. We had a really really slow week and so we were walking around trying to find people to teach on a busy street, the wild was blowing, but it was hot outside so we appreciated it. Well I don't know how long we were walking but like 2 cars honked within like 30 seconds of each other. I turned around to look and guess what? The wind had blown my skirt up so that my skirt was no longer covering my bum and was like bunched below my backpack. I was walking on a public street guys! How embarassing. Haha talk about showing your religion.. Bahaha classic Hermana Groves right? I just thought I was getting a nice breeze.. nope the wind was directly hitting me. Haha

Also last week while we were grocery shopping and I was drinking water (I hadn't all day) so I was smiling. I look up and this like 50 year old man is staring at me. So I smile and look away and look back and he's still looking. He's a little while away.. But he yells to me "Maam, I'm sorry for staring, but you got your self a MILLION dolla smile!" I like pointed to myself and he said "Yes maam! Did you see me staring at anyone else?" haha I told him thanks. But that was basically the most flattering thing I've heard on my mission. Haha he was completely sincere and just walked away. Random acts of kindness, I dig them. 

Just remember I love you guys. You're fantastic. Keep strong and carry on :)

Hermana Groves

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

May 12th, 2014

This week we had what seemed like a really long week, where we taught a few lessons and the rest of it was just driving around trying to find people in our are area, less actives and formers all that fun. But after 2 days straight of strictly knocking doors and calling old/bad phone numbers we recieved 3 marvelous texts. We had referrals, the best kind mormon.org referrals. These are the people who go out of their way to find the church website and ask for missionaries. So you know what we're doing this week! We're going to go visit them. I am so pumped. We were working up a sweat trying almost the whole ward list to get less actives and we were blessed by our efforts with some potential investigators. YAY! 

 

So I can't remember if I told you about a less active we're teaching named Cynthia. But she is a riot. Seriously she's really cleaning up here life, she's getting married, she's been clean for 2 weeks of cocaine and she came to church yesterday for the first time in a long time! Let me just tell you some of the things she says that is just so funny. To me anyways. So she was thinking about her marrying Edward (her live in boyfriend) while she was by herself the other day and she said "Sisters, I was thinking about Edward the other day and I was praying to my Heavenly Father and the thought came to me that Heavenly Father is gonna be Edward's father in law. Oh wait that means Heavenly Father's gonna be my new father in law! Heavenly Father's gonna get a new son AND daughter in law!! Oh man, Cynthia where you going with all this?"  hahaha I love her. So there was this other time she was talking about right after she was baptized in like the 80's and how she was living on God's side. She said that she and God were so close that she would get her hair done and it's be raining and as soon as she said "My haaaaiirrr" the rain would stop. She's super entertaining and sweet too, she sometimes takes in homeless people and gives them food, bathes them and sends them on their way. She's a really great lady I really like her. I'm glad her friend from the ward comes with us most of the time though, she's better at keeping her on track than we are haha.

So we have been working a lot with them members and just getting to know them and their families. One rule I hate as a missionary is the baby rule. In every house I go in there is a baby under the age of 1. I just wanna hold all the babies! Speaking of my young ward, yesterday being mother's day the primary kids sang but there is no such thing as a senior primary here, there are 3 nurseries and about 50 children in the primary under the age of 8. This ward is adorable. But you can imagine how that song went without the older kids there to kinda lead the song. Haha I didn't even cry! That was mainly cause I didn't really know what song they were singing hahaha. Ah man. 

I finally saw a Vermont Licence Plate. Ahh Yeah! I can't think of anything else to share. I hope all you mothers had a good mother's day and I was so happy to talk to the fam yesterday :) I hope everyone has a great week! :) LOVE YOU!

Sister Groves

Attachments area

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