Another week down and let me start by saying.... USA USA USA!!! Whether they move on or not from the Final 16, THEY MADE IT THROUGH THE GROUP. They survived "The Group Of Death" and for that, I am dang proud of my country!

Being a spanish elder is SICK, soccer is on everywhere I go, haha.

Anyways, there is currently a HUGE storm going on outside. It's raining SO hard and thundering SO SO SO loud. It's freaking crazy man.

Last monday was a weird preparation day because the church was closed because they were cleaning the carpet... sooooooooo we went to the top of the huge JW Marriot hotel that is downtown and used our connections to get to the top floor and look out over the whole city. We then went out to lunch with Maria de los Angeles and saw some of the Mexico-Croatia game.... until a storm made the power go out. Hahahaha.

Tuesday we found this new guy in a trailor park named Josue who is about to have a new kid soon so we taught him about Pre-Earth life and all that. He's pretty cool. We will see what happens there. Everything else on tuesday didn't really matter except for the NBA Finals at Mutual. My team won game 1, then lost 2 & 3 and then we charged back to win in 6 so now I got my RING. Official NBA champ. That's what's up.

Wednesday I went on an exchange in English world because Elder Mancilla had some training up in Fishers. It was pretty good. We found this cool black guy on the street and invited him to ball with us on Thursday but he never came. Maybe one day. I also taught this guy who just came here from Mexico named Rodrigo and he may have potential. Not really sure but we will see. He isn't in my area so I won't continue teaching him, but maybe I will transfer one day and teach him. Idk. After the exchange we went to a baptism of a girl in the YSA and it was cool cool. We finished the night teaching Ingrid and she is doing good.

Thursday. USA lost 1-0 to Germany, but I don't even mind because they still moved on. So it's okay. We went by Maira and taught her a little and then we went to Adela's for dinner and she made some REALLY good tinga. So dang delicious I was dying in love. I had like 6 tostadas of it. Haha. (Mom you should figure out how to make Tinga [google it] and perfect your skills at making it before I come home). We then balled out aka Basketball with less actives for the rest of the night!

Friday we had district meeting in the morning and then after, we had service with Christina Soberanes. She cleans houses for her job and we were in charge of pulling weeds and the weeds were SERIOUSLY taller then me. It was insane. I should have taken a picture. We spent like 3 hours pulling them. I got bit, legit, like 30 times by mosquitoes and we all had the dang ITCHIEST legs of all time. Her mom then gives us YELLOW WATERMELON. Which tastes exactly the same but it was still DOPE that the watermelon was yellow! We then had dinner with the Hernandez family and it was fish soup and if y'all know me, I HATE seafood. I was terrified, simply put. The shrimp in the soup still had eyes. Ugh.

Saturday we helped Roman y Mercedes move and then watched the end of that crazy Chile-Brazil game. I love penalty kicks. They make me all antsy and all that. We then went to the other Elder's baptism of these two 9 year olds and when one of them came out of the water he was throwing up two big thumbs up and it was just so dang cute! We then taught Leticia and family after (a member referral) and it was a good lesson, but they said they couldn't come to church because the Mexico game was during it..... which leads me to

Sunday, where half of the branch was missing... aka at home watching the Mexico game. That was a little frustrating. After church we went to this Hispanic Family Fest downtown and found an empty booth and laid out a lot of pass along cards with our number and by the time we left, they were all taken, so hopefully something good happens.

Well, there ya go. 15 days until my trainee comes. So just chillin here.

Talk to y'all next week!

Elder Groseclose

Dulce! Arturo's sister from my first area. Saw her yesterday in Indy!

Normal Sunday at the Spanish church...

YELLOW WATERMELON

Brian got a chucky doll lol

Samantha. An investigator from the YSA branch who is on a Bap. Date :D

We did an "NBA Finals" and my homies and I won in 6 games YO ;)

On top of Indy YO

Hello. :D I really don't have any time this week, but let me start by saying I am absolutely LIVID about the Portugal vs USA game yesterday. The defenders couldn't keep out the goal for 20 more seconds? Like why why why. I have no words for that matter.

I love being a Spanish Elder. The people I work with are ALL about soccer, so I am ALWAYS in the loop. #lucky

Let's take a look at the week, starting with transfer meeting.

So Elder Mancilla and I recieved a new companion: Elder Navarrete. He is from Florida and is waiting for his visa to go to Brazil. He already speaks spanish so it's all good. Brett Smith, my college roommate from BYU, is the Assistant to the President now, which is pretty crazy to me. Love that kid.

That night we went by a family in the branch and the kids answered the door and so we started talking and this was the conversation:

Me: How old are you two?

Alex: 4, no wait 5.

AXel: No, he is 4, I am 5.

Alex: Okay actually I am 5, he is 7.

Sister walks in and says: No, Alex you are 5 and AXel you are 6.

Alex: I am 5.

lol. Crazy kids.

Thursday was dinner with Roman y Mercedes and it was Mercedes' take on American food. She did pretty good lol. Mexicans LOVE spaghetti for some reason. Idk.

We then taught a member referral named Leticia. Her son was just murdered so we are hoping we can help her out. She has met with missionaries before and has a lot of potential. Her daughter (8) REALLY wanted to say the prayer at the end and so we let her and she legit just sat there silent for 2 minutes and then said amen. It was seriously some of the most awkward 2 minutes of my life and was so hard for me to stay composed lol.

Saturday we volunteered at PBS Kids in the Park which is this HUGE festival done by PBS Kids TV network. We were in charge of the meet and greet booths and I was working the Cat in the Hat and Alpha Pig booths. It was super fun but I got BURNT.

Well, gtg already, SORRY!

-elder Groseclose

Hno. Chapital

Maira's son

Working PBS kids in the park!

Sister Gill!

Maria! 

Vicky

TRANSFERS => So, it's actually pretty weird. I am training, but my trainee doesn't come until halfway through the transfer, so I will be in a trio in my same area here waiting for him, and when he comes we will leave and open up a new area. So that'll be pretty crazy.

These weekly emails get really taxing to do let me just say haha. If I wasn't scared of my mom and sister chewing me out for not writing these, I probably wouldn't have made it through my first transfer of writing. Haha.

 

Something weird, I feel like I just hit my year mark, yet on Thursday is my 11 months until I am home mark. It's absolutely flying lol.

Summer has officially OFFICIALLY arrived. It is freaking SO hot and humid. It's legit what it would be like to walk through Hell, I imagine.

I probably was the worst planner user of all time this past week so I actually have very few remembrances of what happened this past week. I do know though that the Heat got absolutely WRECKED by the Spurs. haha. And that guy on Brazil SCORED IN HIS OWN GOAL. HAHA.

And shout out to USA for scoring as soon as the game started and right as it ended to pick up a W.

But because I was really bad with my planner, I will give "highlights".

On Saturday we went to Super Tortas and after like 20 minutes the waitress tells us that some guy bought us free drinks! So that was super sweet :D

Went on an exchange on campus at IUPUI and taught someone super awesome and then she came to play Volleyball with us yesterday for P-Day. Pretty sick. And her friend is a SICK rapper!

Got my hair cut by Brian's brother. He is super good. He uses like those filed blades that are super sick and old fashioned, I felt like a bossss.

I freaking love Milanesa.

Sorry, this letter just has no substance. I will be better this next week in keeping note of what happens, until then, Les quiero mucho!

Talk to y'all soon. :)

Allllllrighhhhhhty.... Let's see here.....

Giants are 42-21. Life is good there. Heat and Spurs all tied up. Just making sure I am all caught up....

Last Monday was freaking crazzzzzzzy. Like seriously the entire mission decided to go haywire and EVERYBODY it seemed like came to the White River building for sports and it was seriously a mess.... Haha. After P-Day was a huge rain storm that seriously could have killed someone.... somehow. And with my luck, I was biking in it. And the appointments we biked to, all cancelled! It was super awesome.... lol.

Tuesday was pretty rockin' though. We taught this less active that I guess nobody even knew existed. I guess her mom baptized her when she was 11 and now this women legit knows NOTHING about the church so that was weird. It was alright, we are going back by today. Then we taught "The Flirties", aka these young teenage girls that are totally interested in...... "the church". Hahaha, nah but they are cool and actually have really good questions about the church and have a lot of potential. We then taught this guy Jose that I hadn't taught in like 4 months lol. He was making soooo many comments that it took YEEEEEEEEEEEEEARS to finish that lesson. ZZZZZ. We had Brian's baptismal interview that night also and he rocked it out as we suspected. What a boss. We then ended the night with our Mexican Basketball Club time. #ballers

Wednesday we pretty much taught everyone in Indianapolis lol. We went tracting in the morning and managed on 3 separate occasions in 2 hours to teach lessons. Not sure how interested the people are, but we taught. :D This one guy in the street we handed a Indianapolis Temple card with questions on the back and he wanted to know the answers so we got to help him with that and it lead to another lesson. Then we taught Hilda and she hadn't been reading because she puts her BOM under her TV and I was like "And how do you expect to read your book when you hide it?" She thought it was a good point and so I told her she MUST leave it where she sits at the dinner table so she will always see it and remember to read. Ha. Then ended the night with Roman y Mercedes! :)

Thursday.... I don't even remember a thing that happened except that we went to Roman's new house in the morning to help him fix it up and I used a machete to tear down vines like a C O M P L E T E boss. Then we ate at Super Tortas and then eventually we had dinner with the Clementes who tried to give me 10 PEARS FOR DESERT. LOL.

Friday.......... Sorry it's not coming to me. We DID get asked by a random black women though, "Hey, what y'all smoke?" We were all confused and said nothing and she was like "Oh...... what church y'all go to?!" and so we talked all about church and then as we leave.... the woman we were talking to gets chased away by another woman because apparently the chick we were talking to was breaking into another woman's car.... lol. 

Saturday ----> Taught our homegirl Catalina and she is still a baller. Can't have a lesson next week though because she is going to go do missionary work for her own church. lol. Then,  Brian's Baptism! It all went well and was fun :) The rest of the night and Sunday was stake conference.

That's the week, gotta run! Love you all! Take care. :)

Elder Groseclose

Brian got baptized YO!

Some homies!

Brian is my BOY.

I love sister o'brien!

Halfway!

I have completed half my mission...

Which means I have a heck of a lot more time to go, haha.

Pacers got taken out by the Heat. Sucks, but expected. Giants still are best team in baseball. My heart is happy.

Did I ever tell y'all about when Elder Mancilla and I got to help translate at a law firm for a 4 million dollar lawsuit? It was pretty sick, not gonna lie.

So let's recap this week --->

Tuesday I was on exchanges in the other elders area. We started off by eating at the Branch President's new pizza shop and it was actually pretty dang yummy! I absolutely hate exchanges more than anything and as expected, it was absolutely awful. Haha. I think my eye had an allergic reaction to something because the whole day, ANY amount of light caused it to burn like crazy and water and water and water. So it was just a super painful day. Also, Tuesday was my official Hump Day. Woot.

Wednesday. More exchanges. Rinse wash and repeat previous day.

Thursday ->

Oh man, everything fell through this day and it was pretty sad. ): We did though manage to do a FHE with Manuel and the Meza family and it was super fun!

Friday --> We had a lesson with Hilda and it's just really lackluster there now. Her interest has really fallen off and she's just super passive now. We did teach Brian though and he is doing great! :)

Saturday --> Whoooooo! Super busy day! So first we had our lesson with Catalina. She is a convert to the Adventist church and she is super "Show me where that is in the Bible!" with anything we ever say and so..... WE DID. We were able to show her so much evidence of the Book of Mormon from the bible and prophecies of it and she was completely different at the end of the lesson. She went from not even wanting to HEAR of the BOM to accepting one and promising to read it. More evidence of her newly found love for us is shown by her giving us 2 water bottles each, flan, tamales, and popsicles at the end of the lesson and wanting to just hang out with us and eat. She's like 60 year olds too, and a complete boss. She even wants to go to church with us now.... on  a Sunday.... and she is an Adventist. #BAM

We then went by a referral from a member and taught her. She has SO much potential. High hopes there!

We then had dinner with Adela which is a convert's mom of Elder Mancilla and we had...... I'm not sure what is was. I'll call it cheese bread. It was good. And for the first time ever, I actually ENJOYED tamarindo!

We ended the night with teaching Brian again. We gave him a list of the baptismal questions to look over and set his interview for Tuesday! We are super excited. His baptism is scheduled for this Saturday. :)

Sunday --> Nothing exciting. Had dinner with Roman y Mercedes. :D

Haha

Well, that's pretty much it. I know it doesn't seem like a lot but it was. I am absolutely exhausted. We hit the Standard of Excellence for the 2nd week in a row!

Talk to y'all later!

Hope to get lots of emails :P

-Elder Groseclose