hi hi happy day number 209. what a LONG week. vajbkohbiiouhcad. seriously never thought it would end. I am so exhausted.

Welp, to start off, I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED. After 4 transfers here in Columbus I am hanging up my hat and heading somewhere north! Probably and most likely to the South Bend area by Notre Dame. How cold.

So, because I can't even BEGIN to think of everything that happened these past two weeks (because I was too lazy to write last week... haha), I am gonna do a really bad list of what happened with asteriks, mhmk?

*Had an outdoor pizza and wing night with Karina outside in the cold rain because we didn't have another male....

*Karina's baptism! It all went just swimming and she was balling and everyone was balling and it was all great. I was so full of joy. Karina was an amazing investigator and she is just so special in my heart. Except for that when she got in the font, the water was freezing cold and she wanted out ASAP, lol. Yay for absolutely murdering the Spirit with cold water. yay us!

*The 18 Spanish Elders all sang Feliz Navidad at the Mission Conference and everyone wished they were us. Totally awesome.

*Facetime'd the loved ones. So nice. :)

*Got a sweater from Karina and a tie from Arturo y Ana. :)

* Spent lots of time with Karina and Arturo y Ana for Christmas and Noche Buena. 

 ^ Yes I only talk about them I know, but like, they are the greatest. 

*I like totally hate bicycling. 

OTHER THAN THAT, life is good. It's really tiring but the fruits of the labor makes it all worth it!

DIOS LES BENDIGA

BYE.

The district

Missionary Christmas at 6am 

Just pics this week 

5 months!

day 195 & 5 month field mark. whoot.

I just saw HOW LAME my weekly letter was last week. LOL. I feel bad how pathetic it was.... But some weeks just literally nothing happens. This week was a lot of the same as always. Life just isn't too exciting haha, but it's life!

*Monday was preparation day, shocker. We didn't really do much because everyone is reallllly slow so we like played sports for an hour and ya. 

*Had dinner with Arturo y Ana on Monday night for Luis 12th birthday! :) I think we ate Tamales.... NO WAIT, we ate Tostadas! They were delicious as always.

*Tuesday was exchanges and district meeting. Stayed in Spanish w/ Elder Bingham and we walked for like 6 hours. BOOOOOO. Then had Guatemalan Hen Soup for dinner. Pretty crazy huh?

*Another exchange because Elder Barrio had a district leader meeting in Fishers. I was with Elder Christensen and he received his Visa for New Zealand during our exchange! He left this morning for there!

*Karina did great in her baptism interview and is all set for this Saturday :) We went with her and her husband to IHOP for lunch :P 

*We have started to teach Arturo's sister, Dulce and she is so awesome. I have known her since I got her in July but we just now have started teaching. FOUND OUT WE GET TO SKYPE ON CHRISTMAS THIS DAY * * * !

*Went to watch a little kid in our Branch play basketball at the First Christian Church Gym haha.

*Had the 4 hour branch christmas party. Hahahah. It was just a bunch of dancing and eating and fun. Our branch is wild, I love it!

Other than all that ^, nothing else has really happened. Sorry I am not exciting!

ELDER GROSECLOSE

Okayyyyy so this week was pretty cold homies. 8 inches of snow on.... Friday. Ya. It didn't stop for 10 hours. Ummm, not much else. That was my week. Well not really, but practically. Let's see what happened:

*Happy 17th Birthday to my little brother Scotty!

*I've been sick all week!

*Zone Preparation Day in Franklin. Played sports in a really small gym. Chill.

*Had Tamales at Arturo y Ana w/ Pellegrinos.

*Visited Cris y Norma and played in the snow with their son Iker :)

*Went over Baptism Questions w/ Karina.

*Did lots of attempts to find.

Sorry this is so boring! The work has slow down so much, but it's helping me grow which is nice. Christmas spirit!!!

Creed (a friend from BYU) at the turkey bowl

Turkey bowl 

Another week. Man it's day 171. Thursday is 6 months. Wow, like... wow. Words can't describe how fast it's gone. It feels slow but in reflection, wow.

Thanksgiving was nice. At around 1 we had to travel up to Indy with President Nehring and visit one of our members who is SUPER sick in the hospital. Lupus & Bacterial Meningitis with a depleted immune system due to Rheumatoid Arthritis, it was so weird for me. His wife there and his 3 daughters, all young. So weird. Reminded me so much of my dad.

I honestly only have like 5 minutes this week to write this, so sorry. LOL ok it just gave me another half hour as I typed that..... IT KNOWS.

As my mission goes on I get less motivated to write a big letter each letter, it's just all in my mind and journal. The true experiences of my time here are things that are felt and seen that can't be described. 

So just some highlights (if you want any specifics on things, please go ahead and email or write me a letter :P Missionaries LOVE letters!!!)

*Thursday we went to the Turkey Bowl and it was so fun, especially my interception! :D And get this, I saw a friend from BYU (Creed Orme) at the Turkey Bowl! He has family in Columbus that he was visiting! It was so bizarre. I felt like I was out of missionary body! I have pictures but I forgot my camera today SORRY MOM AND LAUREN!!! 

*Arturo took us to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings :D

*Had Thanksgiving at our house with the Nehrings. :)

*Visited Cris and Norma in Greenwood which is about an hour away and always fun! :)

*It's officially the most wonderful time of the year! I love seeing all the Christmas coming out!!!

*Karina is still going awesome. She is so much fun and I just love teaching her and I love how much you can see the Gospel blessing her.

*Break The Fast was yesterday and we went up with Arturo y Ana and the family and it was good. Love our members here. 

Sorry it's not too exciting, we only have 1 investigator. We are really really struggling to find, but we are hopeful. The highlights I gave truly are everything from this week. Lots of pictures next week I promise! 

Thank you all for everything. :)

No puedo decir todas las cosas que yo quiero decir! Mi corazon esta lleno de amor por todo del apoyo que he recibido! Disfrute este tiempo con su familia y por favor enfocan su tiempo en las cosas que son importantes. Les extrano muchisimo! Yo quiero que sean felices. 

Elder Groseclose

Okayyyyy let's see here....

Day 174 or something like that.
So today is P-Day, but it's not...

So we have preparation day today from 10-1 and then we have "the rest of Preparation Day" on Thursday from 1 to the end of the night due to Thanksgiving. Pretty weird but whatever.

First item of business, IT IS COLD. IT IS SO COLD. Humid cold just like touches your face and begins to murder you. Pretty awful. It's intensified by being on a bike and just taking in the wind as you go. BLAH.

So after P-Day activities last week we spent the night doing FHE with the Hammond's and it was fun. They do them in a really fun way and gave me ideas for when I have my family! 

On Wednesday, even though we were both staying, Elder Barrio and I got to go to Transfer Meeting, biggest one ever in the mission, it was crazy! They split every zone in half so there are so many more zone leaders and zones and it's crazy.I got to see Brett and Elder Oliva so that was fun, Elder Oliva goes home in 3 weeks! 

We then had lunch at Panda!!! I haven't been in AGES!!!! We got to drive by the temple being constructed in Carmel also. :D After that we went by Norma and had Milanesa with her and Cris, so good! 

On Tuesday we took Arturo to a lesson and it was so cool having him there as a member! :D

On Wednesday we had district meeting with the new district and then went to a really yummy noodle shop called Noodles and Company and got this Spicy Peanut Sauce pasta, no clue but it was good!  We then had dinner with Arturo y Ana and taught about doing missionary work!

Also on Friday we had a dinner/lesson with Karina at Arturo's house and we got to teach them both and it was cool to have them altogether. :)

On Saturday Norma went to the temple and loved it! Hernan y Yesenia also went so it was all pretty special for me. :) 

Yesterday Arturo was confirmed in church :D He says he already feels the difference! Brother Hammond then went with us to Seymour to visit Less Actives and a recent convert in the English Ward out there who speaks Spanish!

Other than that, just another week.

I will try to stay warm....

Have fun! Happy Thanksgiving!

-Elder Groseclose 

Ummmmm.... day 167. which means like when you go off dates, i am home in 18 months. weird stuff like that man. Okkkkkayyyy, this week was probably the longest week of my mission. Everything was SLOOOOOW and Elder Barrio and I felt sick and sore and pretty much the word I am looking for is: dead. Anyways, as I type this and yawn, let us begin:

Monday: Zone Preparation Day! Which means a bunch of missionaries came together to do stupid things like throw balls at each other and try to catch them and dodge them at the same time (DODGEBALL), throw a circle into another circle while bouncing the circle in order to get closer to the other circle (BASKETBALL), running full speed at each other while we try to kick a ball into a chair (CHAIR SOCCER), and Volleyball (like the perfect sport). So after all this business we were all ridiculously sore and in store for a week of feeble knees and biking, yippee! We had FHE with the Mijango's and they made Milanesa and just like... it's so divine I can't even put words together..... 

Tuesday: So tuesday we had District Meeting and then exchanges so I was with Elder Harris who actually goes home tomorrow. Weird.... Anyways we just walked around and taught no one because whatever, bad day of finding. We just sang songs all day. chill. We then went to Golden Corral for dinner with a member and then gave Hernan a blessing because he my BOY and then we had Arturo's Baptism Interview and I got to translate in it and it was just totally cool man. Oh, and then he asked me to speak at his baptism so like yeahhhhh. 

Don't even talk to me about Wednesday. We tracted in what may as well have been Antarctica for 6 hours aight? We eventually got to go eat with Hernan y Yesenia though and watch Mountain of the Lord.

Thursday. Pretty chill day. Woke up and did the usually studying business. Then we did service chopping down trees for the Nehring's like the usual things. Eventually we had weekly planning and then ate at the Hind's and then had an awesomeeeee Word of Wisdom lesson with my bestie Karina! So gooooood.

Friday. LOL. What a day man. Shootout to my girls Tayler Delaney Erica and Kelsey for being in my really weird missionary dream and Kelsey for calling me daddy in it, HA! :P Went with Shawnna to China Buffet for lunch. Anyways so we went to Seymour and it was fruitless. Talked to this guy who was scared of the BOM because he thought God would kill him if he read it so like..... lol.  Then our dinner appointment calls us and pretty much describes to us that she has leprosy, so needless to say, we cancelled that. We then went to Hernan y Yesenia and hung out and gave blessings again and Elder Barrio and I both almost passed out and we felt SOOOO sick. So we went home early and went straight to bed at 8:30, but I didn't fall asleep until midnight. awful. awful.

Saturday. Ummmm I don't really remember what we did. Ummmm. Ya sorry I am drawing a blank here. My bad my bad! We did have Stake Conference Adult session in Indy though!

Sundayyyy. MAN WHAT A COOL DAY. We had SC in the morning again and then after we went and made the Baptismal Program and filled the font and then went home for break. While we are there, out of NOWHERE comes this loud siren coming from who knows where and just blares across all of Columbus saying a tornado is coming. It was like God was speaking from the clouds so bizarre. So I was all excited for it and everyone else is freaking out lol. We almost postponed the baptism an hour but Arturo was already at the church! So we then continued with it and everyone came and right as the service started THE TORNADO CAME. EXCUSE ME AS I USE CAPS BUT DANG MAN IT WAS CRAZY. YOU COULDN'T SEE ANYTHING EXCEPT DUST AND WIND AND FLYING TREES! MOBILE HOMES WERE FLYING IN THE AIR AT THE TRAILOR PARK. IT WAS CRAZY. IT WAS SO COOL. OH MY GOSH MAN LIKE DANG I HAVE NO WORDS. THAT TORNADO WAS CRAZY. Anyways, I gave my talk at the baptism on Focusing on the Important Things and it went well and Arturo was baptized and we had a dinner after at his house and it was all so amazing. Ahhhh, so cool to be a part of.

OK SO THAT'S ALL, I GOT TO GO. LOVE YOU ALL <3 SEE YA IN 18!

ELDER GROSECLOSE

Arturo's baptism! 

Arturo y Ana and their kids

Elder Groseclose y Norma 

Herman y Yesenia so special to me. less actives that i worked with for 4 months and are now reactivating :)

The district

Okayyyy. So that weekly letter thing time! I am just gonna give highlights as always. My mom always begs for more details but like.... Mom we just knock doors and hear white people say "Leave us alone" and the Hispanics say "No but you can have some water." Like not too much details to give!!! :P

Anyways, with that aside, pretty awesome week!

On Monday was preparation day and we just hung out at the Nehring's house (where I live) with the other Elders and played Ping-Pong and Spies and Rebels (shout out to BYU friends!! I really wish we could play Murder in the Dark again!!) Then as we were about to leave to go out and bike at the end of Preparation Day, Arturo pulls up randomly and then proceeds to take us to his house and he gives us some AMAZING Salsa Verde Enchiladas and then we read with him in the Book of Mormon, because as we all know, the Isaiah chapters are HARD!

Tuesday was another exchange and once again I stayed in Spanish.... lol. We had district meeting and then a little district picnic after. That night as Knudsen and I were biking this girl somewhere in her twenties yells "Hey Morons! Morons!" and so of course we go say hi and talk with her because at least she isn't running or hiding like most people when they see us LOL. So turns out she was hammered drunk beyond belief and it was just hilarious and it was a fun discussion we had and then she proceeded to try and drunk hug us.... We then had Arturo pick us up and take us to Hernan Y Yesenia's and we watched the John Tanner movie and they made absolutely PERFECTLY DELICIOUS DIVINE LIFE CHANGING AMAZING PERFECTTTTT milanasa. No words can sufficiently describe the taste. YUM. We then went to Arturo's house and talked about scripture study with him!

Wednesday was a hard day, but at least Shawna fed us some Chili!

Thursday was service, planning, Hernan y Yesenia again for dinner, and then we taught Karina w/ Brother Creasy and committed her to baptism Dec. 21 and she accepted. She is so prepared. :)

Friday we were missionaries, okay? I just want to get to Saturday!!!

OKAY SATURDAY. AMAZING DAY. We tracted in the morning and it was useless and then we tried to contact people and it was in vain. Whatever, no biggy. We then went by the Mijango's because they are back from Guatemala and she got us really cool street vendor bookmarks from there! And then..... So last Sunday, Arturo signed up to feed us so like all week we were just working towards reaching our Saturday dinner with them so we could invite him to a baptismal date. So we were so excited for this dinner. We get there and Arturo invited the Nehrings, Bro. Bartnett, and the Pellegrinos over for dinner (the members he is closest with). So we were all excited because it was gonna be some huge dinner with a lot of empanadas and before we started eating, we all gather together to say the prayer and Arturo says:

"So the reason I gathered all of you here today is because I have an announcement for everyone," I start dying and all nervous and excited "I have decided I am going to be baptized, and I want to do it as soon as possible that way Elder Groseclose will still be here and not be transferred yet." Words cannot explain the joy that everyone had in that moment and the joy that I felt, I had absolutely NO WORDS in that moment. I was bright red I bet. It was honestly one of the most amazing moments of my life. It is TRULY so amazing the work that we do as missionaries. No matter how hard all the tracting, lack of sleep, and everything may be, they are completely lost the second you see someone taking the steps that you KNOW will bring them pure happiness. It's unbelievable how much you grow to love the people. Arturo's baptism is completely all for him but knowing that I helped him there and that I was a part of someones conversion is so amazing. Ahhh! So next Sunday at 5! :D

Sorry that was so scatter brained ^ It's hard to put words together about the experience. You truly cannot understand the feeling until you've gone through all the experiences, trials, and hardships leading up to it. It's great to be a missionary.

Sunday was the primary program and Arturo's and Karina's kids were in it, so cool. :) 

So like I am flustered now haha, so I will close!

Love you all!

Elder Groseclose!

Uh..... whoops I ran out of time.

Quickest recap ever for the past week:

- Cleaned Sister Lopez' garage for 3 hours. Sound exciting?

Oh.... the computer just refreshed my time. Well, this is awkward now because I was totally digging the idea of a quick and easy update. But uhhhh, okay lemme give a LITTLE more info...

On Tuesday we had a lesson with our now returning (YAY!!!!) less actives and we brought Arturo with us and they totally got along and it was so awesome to see! On the way home Arturo got us snacks and hot chocolate (he was totally making jokes about buying Tea and Coffee because we just taught him WOW, haha!) He then asked us to go over Baptismal Interview questions and tithing with him! So he decided to exercise faith and paid tithing yesterday! So cool to see. 

Wednesday was the Halloween Party at the church. Fun stuff. 

Thursday was Halloween but it got postponed due to a severe storm lol.Definitely not in California anymore. haha. We also had interviews with president and they went swiiiiimmingly. Tracted and got nothing in some crazy crazy rain. These older ladies stopped and tried to give me their umbrella so I wouldn't get sick!  So FRIDAY was Halloween and we had a Zone Meeting and then went to Norma and Cris and taught about Temple Baptisms and had dinner and then had to be in early for the night due to Halloween. So we handed out candy and discussed doctrine with Sis Nehring. fun life.

Saturday we did brick stacking service with Arturo and then he took us to his taqueria for lunch. yum yum yum yummmmm. We then had dinner at his house later that day and taught more about tithing with Ana there.

Yesterday was fast sunday. Pretty chill day. I can't think right now. Sorry. whoooops. Totally bomb dot com good testimony meeting and we had Arturo y Ana, Karina, y Marcelino all attend church. Then that night we taught Karina, well actually we just answered lots of questions she had. wheeeee. good times.

So that was my week in a nutshell. Don't worry, I am more descriptive in my journal, I just get all lazy sometimes. I don't know what I am actually saying anymore. Can I just write to you all in Spanish. It is just easier sometimes.

Yo espero que ustedes tengan una buena semana y cuidense muuuuucho.

deuces (that's english lol)

elder groseclose