Week 20!

I think my sister told me it's Week 20, so I'll go with that. 

WEEK 20.

That makes me like almost a fifth of the way done, that's weird. Seems like it's been forever but it also feels like I am almost home. Ha. 

So like, the longer you are in the field the more you realize that you just simply cannot do an organized weekly email anymore. So much random things happen and you forget what goes with what day and it's just a mess. Every week is pretty much go out and explode and then you have PDay and do it all again. Haha. Anyways, something cool: We got an email from President and he said by MAY (so yes like 7 months) every companionship will have 2 iPad Minis and and iPhone. You will be able to have Facebooks and Skype and you can teach Skype lessons you people you know from HOME that may be interested in the Gospel. A missionary in Florida, for example, is teaching his non-member mom over Skype, SAY WHAT?!?! It just like makes my mind blow up. I cannot even comprehend it lol. 

Anyways, so for some weekly highlights:

-Visited Catalina and David and got to talking about the "Don't add or diminish from this book" scriptures and it was cool to see how misinterpreted it is and it was cool to learn about the history behind the Bible. 

-We got fed 4 dinners in one day. Blah. WHILE BIKING. 

-Arturo y Ana still make us the most amazing food as always. So perfect. 

-We were biking and someone hung out the window and pointed and laughed at us and 10 seconds letter got pulled over by a cop. HAHA. 

-Helped Arturo with his landscaping job and he said he wants to come to lessons with us if we ever need a ride! 

-Played a prank on the other Elders into thinking the car was stolen and it was their fault.

-Knocked a trailor and asked a guy if he knew where any Spanish speakers lived and he started yelling at us to leave America and go look in Mexico and it was funny that he got so worked up about it hahaha.

-Had Arturo y Ana over at the Nehring's house and got to roast marshmallows with them and share a GC talk! 

-Norma got baptized on Saturday!!! 

-Arturo stayed all 3 hours at church :)

Have a great week my beloved family and friends. 

Elder Groseclose

ps: i speak spanish. weird.

Wowwww, I am running low on time so bear with me if this letter is shorter than usual!

Anyways, last Monday was just a regular P-Day and nothing was too special and Tuesday we just went around so Elder Oliva could say bye to members and investigators and all that beautiful stuff. Yawn. ANYWAYS: New companion.

So Wednesday was transfer meeting and I got a new companion. His name is Elder Barrio. He is from Chihuahua Mexico and lives in the Mormon colonies there. He lived in the states for a little bit in HS because he is near Juarez which is like awful with drug trade and all that. But he knows English and Spanish perfectly so it's such a blessing to have. He has been out 11 months and he really is an amazing missionary. I have learned so much from him in our short time that I cannot even begin to explain it. I think I will grow 2489361 fold this transfer. 

Anyways, I am so sorry for how lame this email is but truly, it was just a week of adjusting and getting ready to work hard. We are still set for the baptism with Norma on Saturday and she passed her interview last night so it's all pretty much good to go. I absolutely love the branch and the people we work with and I blow my mind every day that I speak a language that isn't English...

So just some weekly highlights:

-Pruned a pine tree

-My new district seems really fun

-District lunch at China Buffet

-Seeing my investigators have a lot of opposition which shows me how true the work really is, the adversary tries so hard to stop it! 

-Late night Taco Bell run!

Yup, I am boring this week! But let it be known, I am thankful for everyone and you all have no idea how much I appreciate the emails and letters!

Tengan una buena semana mis amigos :)

Elder Groseclose

My new companion Elder Barrio

Day 7361279, but in reality, Day 125. And the end of my third transfer and 2nd in the field, which officially makes me DONE with training. That's nice! I have no words to even BEGIN to describe these last 2 transfers. They have been LONG, they have been difficult, they have been A L O T of work, they have been exhausting, but, they have been FUN. How much I have learned and grown and seen in these past few months is unexplainable. I can't even wrap my head around it. And to think I still have somewhere near 590 days to go is really cool but also bizarre. Time is an interesting concept...

MONDAY: Last monday, the usual, PREPARATION DAY. Zone Preparation day though so all the missionaries in the zone who wanted to came down to good old Columbus and we hung out at the church playing Chair Soccer and Dodgeball. Of course, being me, I made an alliance in chair soccer to make sure I did as good as possible. Not being a soccer player, it was my natural instinct to use my witty ways and make allliances and welp, I won. It sure made me miss all my TV shows of who can outlie who, bahaha. Then P-Day ended and we exchanged and Elder Combs came to Spanish land for the night! 

TUESDAY: Our real exchange was today. We biked around trying to find people and of course everything, naturally, fell through that we had planned. Expected. We did though get the chance to visit Jacie who is one of the newer converts to the ward. We talked with her for a little bit and it's always interesting times with her. From there we had Chilean food with the Bejars, whatever in the world that is. They made some great quesadillas though so I definitely was digging that. Afterwards, we went with President Nehring up to Greenwood to teach Norma. Her husband Chris is a member and she has decided that it's time for herself to be baptized also and she has such a strong testimony that she just never knew she had. We set a baptisimal date for October 19th. :) On the way home, President Nehring got a call that two kids at Institute were sick so we stopped by their and helped out with that! We got in at 10:36, we are supposed to be in BED at 10:30, WHOOPS.

WEDNESDAY: Went in the morning with Brother Sanchez to visit and teach Norma again. We breezed through two lessons and it all went swell. After that we went to teach Luis Jaimez and he actually read in the BOM and it was so cool! Who knows what else will happen but it was cool to see him actually keep a commitment. Like I've said before, Arturo y Ana used to own a Mexican restaurant and since Wednesday was Ana's birthday, we went with them out to dinner at their old restaurant. It was SOOOOOOO good. Divinely good. SO GOOD. The tacos were perfect. I had 10 of them. They changed my life. Arturo said it's his recipes, he is a freaking amazing cook! Then for dessert we had Tres Leches cake (3 Milk) and that is seriously my favorite cake now. It is perfect!

THURSDAY: Helped Sister Nehring in the morning out in the yard and then had weekly planning after. I got a great package from Lauren and it had the cutest family pictures!! Got to have dinner with the Richards and taught a lesson with our newest investigators Karina and Ben. It was a great lesson!

FRIDAY: Zoooooone training!!! We learned more about how to work with members and it was great and really productive. After the training we went and taught Norma again and then they feed us this Argentinian food Milanesa, SOOOOO GOOD. Oh my goodness it's crazy the things hispanics can cook! We had a dinner scheduled right after that but thank goodness it cancelled! So we just headed home and did some studies and all our lessons fell through so we visited a referral we had and he was a Jehovah's Witness so we had the usual talk there. Those are always fun though, I enjoy them. I learned that their Bible they take out a lot of the verses. It was really weird to learn. 

SATURDAY: General Conference! A missionaries dream! The talks the morning session were SOOOOO good. It's crazy being a missionary and seeing how everything is about missionary work! After the first session we went with the Sisters and the 2nd Ward Bishop to lunch at a Mexican restaurant and he paid for us so that was super sweet! Marcelino was in town because he needed to exchange something at the local pawn shop so we went and helped him communicate because he knows no English. He then came with us after to a session of General Conference and loved it :)  After the second session we just visited people and one of our investigators was absolutely wasted out of his mind. 8 beers and he was smoking who knows what. He was talking to us and was like an inch away, he totally had no sense of distance. He then started just randomly hugging us and he started to speak in English. It was bizarre. He asked how to pronounce my name for some reason and when I said it he started yelling "YEAHHHHH MAN!" He then proceeded to tell us he was drunk as if we couldn't tell and then started apologizing profusely. Interesting. We then returned to the church for pizza and watched the Priesthood Session. 

SUNDAY: General Conference part 2. Luncheon at the Church. Took district pictures. Killed off Elder Isaacson (when a missionary is about to go home you take a "death" picture, his was being killed by a star on a christmas tree). No investigator lessons today, all fell through so we went and visited a part-member family Catalina y David and just had a great time chatting and what not. She gave us hot cocoa and bread.

AND NOW FOR THE FEATURE PRESENTATION.... So last night we got "THE CALL", which is when we find out who is being transferred, who is staying, and whether either of us will be training or what not. SOOOO....

My trainer Elder Oliva is.... LEAVING. Sad to see him go. I am so thankful for my trainer. I was truly blessed. 

I am...... STAYING. YAY! I am so glad for more time here in Columbus, especially with a baptism in 2 weeks!!

Anyways, running out of time so I gotta send the family pictures. Bye!

ELDER GROSECLOSE

me and elder oliva dressing up.

my new nametag because groseclose is too hard for hispanics.

the taco sign in arturo's old restaraunt 

Arturo singing Te Amo (i love you) to Ana!

Arturo y Ana's kids!

Elder Oliva and I made a rap and so we got an award.... lol

Our district!

Catalina y David. They didn't smile because they are too cool. Haha

Columbus :)

First off, what a miracle a mission is. All you do is constantly watch the hand of God guide you.

Monday: Welp, last monday started off weird. We got a call from two of the members both asking if we were alive or whether we were hit by a truck and killed. Hmph. Turns out a biker in a white shirt and tie that works at Cummins got hit and people thought it was us. He turned out okay so you can all laugh now. Ha. As a district we went to Zaharako's for lunch. Look it up. It's so cool. This old fashion ice cream parlor. Had our normal Badminton tournament and I am now back-to-back-to-back-to-back champion. Things are getting pretty serious with it now. Hahaha. We also played this game called chair soccer. You get a gym and 4 people who all have their own chair and you put them in the 4 corners. You then throw up a soccer ball and you all go crazy and try to kick the ball to hit someones chair, if your chair is hit, you're out. You go until someone is left. Ta-da! Simple yet magical! We then had dinner with Shawna who was one of our concerned members who thought we were hit by a truck. We arrived like living angels to her house and she was happy to see our bodies still workable. We then exchanged with the Zone Leaders and so I was with Elder Harris, who was actually Brett Smith (my BYU roomate) trainer! SMALL WORLD.

Tuesday: So we had district meeting in the morning and then just went home for break after. Totally lame morning. Then when we tried to leave to go out and work, Elder Harris didn't fit on Elder Oliva's bike so he spent 45 minutes trying to fix it and eventually resolved that he couldn't. It was just a mess. We proselyted outside of Mexican stores and it was really funny listening to Elder Harris try to use spanish. I was dying haha. We never got to teach anyone but we did have dinner that night with the Mijangos and she made us this diviiiine asian food. YUM.

Wednesday: Exchanged back so I got my little hispanic back, ha. I was ridiculously tired this day. It was awful. I am currently yawning as I think about it. We tracted and this girl asked us if we were the "People who believe in a different Jesus". I was so confused, like what does that even mean? Hahaha. I fell asleep for like 15 seconds in a Less Active Lesson, that was awful. After that we went to Walmart and got the ghetto asian food they sell there like at Supermarkets and then found this random mini beach in a grove of trees and ate there and just pretended like we were on a beach obviously.... We then taught Arturo y Ana with Sister Nehring!

Thursday: So we have this investigator in Seymour which is forever away, so we took the car from Columbus 2 and went and taught him and it was totally cool and then we had lunch after at Chili's, freaking YUM YUM. And this Chili's is launching like this pilot program with these electronic devices that you get on your table, it is weird, you pay from your table with your card by yourself now. You'll see it soon California! Then we just had never ending Weekly Planning, taught Familia Jaimez and went to the Panaderia with the Columbus 2.2 sisters and feasted on mexican bread. yum.

Friday: So, we did service all day. Spent 4 hours (whoops) making Empanadas with Sis. Lopez and then after that we had to go set up for the Branch Fiesta. Then we had the fiesta. It went amazing and so many non members came, so awesome! 

Saturday: So today there was this huge marathon in Columbus so we pretty much had to stay in until the roads opened again. We then went tracting in this trailor park in Edinburgh because we had plenty of miles left. We found a new investigator and then accidentally knocked into a Jehovah's Witness and she talked at us for like 35 minutes and then told us to return soon so she can teach us more. lol. That was fun. We then went by Familia Vaiz and they made me eat ants. Not like normal ants, huge ants from Mexico. So awful. Then we went to Familia Jaimez for their sons birthday party and they kept wanting me to drink Tequila so I can "learn to fly"

AHHH! the computer is about to kick me off, i will do Sunday next week! I have to send this. love you all bye!

Day 111!

Day 111! Wow! The days seem to never end and the weeks fly by, it's quite bizarre. It kind of also blows my mind que yo puedo hablar espanol. It's weird when I can just randomly break in between spanish and english. Like I will just be talking and spanish will randomly just roll into my English. I even am starting to say English words in Spanish accent. Like the word family now sounds like "fawmlee" I crack myself up, haha. The letter A makes an "aw" sound and I just can't shake it out of my English! Anyways,

Monday: Well, Preparation Day. I won the Badminton tournament. The Olympics better watch out, I'm really coming along in my great skills. Ha. Went to go pick up my bike from the sisters and it turned out one of the sisters popped my tire and totally tried to fix it but failed miserably. So I flushed another 10 dollars down the toilet for that one. Went to Familia Vaiz and it was interesting. We essentially just watched a Spanish soap opera with them for 15 minutes, they said I look fatter, and we left. Hahahaha. Totally unproductive, whoops!

Tuesday: We had zone conference and it was 8 hours long so that was a hefty amount of thinking I had to do for a substantial amount of time. Sure don't miss academics, ha! It was a super good conference though and I am excited to see how it helps my missionary work! That night we just ate at home and while we were eating, the little girl Hannah that lives with us (4) told Elder Oliva he has a really dark face and looks funny and I was dying laughing and her mom totally swoops in and says "That's because his family are lamanites, isn't that cool Hannah?" and then she was totally amazed thinking he is some Book of Mormon hero now! After, we went to teach an investigator Ulices and he was working on fixing his closet so we went with him to Lowe's to buy supplies and he totally wanted me to drive his old El Dorado 

car and I was so sad that we aren't allowed to, it's such a sick car!

Wednesday: District meeting! I had the idea that we could all share something instead of just the District Leader and so we did and it was so awesome! I loved it! Everyone had great things to share. After, the entire district went to Zwanzigs for pizza and it was so fun to all hang out! As we were driving back home, we saw Arturo working on a roof and stopped and said hi and set up an appointment to teach him that night. Later that day we went by to teach Zaida and we gave her a priesthood blessing, my first ever in Spanish. Crazy! For dinner we went to the Mijango's and they had  CHINESE TAKE OUT! I was so excited I almost cried! We then went with Brother Mijango to teach Arturo y Ana but Arturo was still working so we only taught Ana.

Thursday: So Thursdays we do lots of service and weekly planning so it's not too busy but for our service we worked in the yard with Sister Nehring. We were sawing branches off trees and planting grass and a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE storm came. It was AMAZING. I cannot begin to describe it. I have never seen anything even NEAR what it was like. It was so crazy cool. I just stood outside in it basking in the rain. It was crazy. SOOOO much rain. The rain in Indiana is incredible. It's weird because it's slightly humid hot rain, but whatever! We went by the Panaderia later that day to try and teach them but it didn't work out so we just got some yummy orange muffins and left. Then we had dinner at the Richard's house and I helped coach their daughter Katie in Volleyball and I was so sentimental, haha! 

Friday: Did service in the morning in Sister Lopez' garden. Mowed her lawn and we are starting to rebrick the side of her house, what a joy. We then went to teach Zaida but a huge storm came and we couldn't because we have to teach her outside. It's sad how we always get rained out from teaching her! The rest of the day nothing really happened so we just proselyted outside a mexican tienda and then that night we went and watched some of the 

Columbus North FB game. It was homecoming and like no one was there. Their parade was just the four floats and it just reminded me of how awesome Liberty is at Homecoming! We do it way better than anyone ever can! They let us free into the game and kept trying to give us seats on the field haha. I think they thought we were the security guards or something in our white shirts and ties. 

Saturday: In the morning we went and taught one of our investigators Raul and he sang us songs he wrote and played his guitar and it was coooooolio. That night we just had dinner at the Taqueria and taught Ulices about Chastity and he loved it and said he will talk to his girlfriend about getting married, so cool! Oh, I was dancing in the car and I said "giggin" and now Elder Oliva says it all the time. He is like a little kid, he repeats everything nonstop, haha.

Sunday: None of our investigators were at church.... Super sad about that.... I gave a talk in church too, so I was bummed. It was crazy how I managed to write a talk all by myself in Spanish. I blow my mind sometimes. After church we taught Francisco and then went to Felix y Angelica's to give him a blessing and of course when they got there, they had us stay for dinner too. The hispanics never stop feeding us. It's bizarre. Hispanics LOVE to cook for people.

Wow, long email. Long week. Fun week. Missionary work is crazy, but I love it. I get homesick for a second and then I realize how lucky I am to be a missionary. The work is hard and fun. What a paradox! I am grateful for the mini miracles that I get to see everyday! Well, until next week!

Hasta luego!

Elder Jeffrey Aaron Groseclose

Day Number 104! Haha! That puts me about about 1/7 of the way through. Wow. Anyway, time for the regular:

Monday: We had our usual P-Day! Emails, Walmart, Food, and Sports! We had our usual badminton tournament and I won, yay! I love Badminton haha. Then we played basketball with our investigator Arturo and it was way fun! After he had us over for dinner and it was amazing quesadillas! They used to own a restaurant and are AMAZING cooks! He then took us to our lesson with Ulices after and even invited Ulices to church! He is so amazing! 

Tuesday: District meeting in the morning and then we went to lunch at China Buffet with Elders Combs and Knudsen. We then did service with Arturo y Ana helping clean up the yard of this abandoned house because the lady who lives next door says it makes her house look awful! The story behind it is super crazy. I will give a brief summary! This couple lived there with their daughter who was 28 and the daughter got caught up with the wrong people and these 2 guys asked her if she knew anywhere that'd be easy to rob and she told them of this older lady who was partly deaf. When the guys went to rob the house, the lady woke up and came downstairs so they killed her and other stuff happened but the girl got implicated for murder because of it so the couple had to mortage the house to help with her lawyer bills and all this stuff, crazy huh?

Wednesday: We tracted. We got no results. The usual that comes from tracting. We did teach Zaida though and taught a recent convert Jacie after. Totally hilarious. That night we had dinner with Arturo y Ana again and shared a message with them. :)

Thursday: Day 100! Haha. In the morning we helped Sister Nehring patch holes in the walls and then paint the entire basement wherever there were marks. We then had much success in teaching three lessons and had dinner with the Mijangos that night. She made this rice with cheese and cream and corn and it was super delicious and this amazing, I believe, Argentinian type of meat. It was awesome!

Friday: Complete mess other than that we taught Ulices with Guapo.

Saturday! Great day! Elder Knudsen came to Spanish land and we had exchanges! We tracted for 3 hours and got nothing but a potential but it was still nice because the weather is AMAZING right now! We also managed to set up a return appointment that went through. We then tried Proselyting outside of one of the mexican tiendas and got a few contacts and we hope to see from fruit from that labor! We taught this older couple who sells bread outside the tienda and they talked A LOT. It was an interesting lesson! She has very strong faith though so maybe it can become something? Then we taught Francisco a quick lesson and that night Arturo y Ana had over all the missionaries in Columbus (10 of us!) for dinner! They made a bunch of tamales and they were DELICIOUS! It was so cool seeing all the missionaries eating together with our amazing investigators! Such a cool awesome experience! 

Sunday: We woke up at 6 to head out to a church meeting an hour away and then we had just an hour of church (sacrament meeting). It was an interesting morning. It was Andrew's birthday today! He lives with us and he turned 2! He is so adorable and it made me miss my little buddy Carter! We taught Raul y Odaris and I feel really good about them! They loved the restoration movie! We also got our first ever referral today! The sisters knew how special it'd be so they decorated it and delivered it to us in an envelope all decorated, haha!

All in all, we taught 13 other lessons this week! It is our record by far. It was such a successful week. The Spanish is just spilling out and I don't even have to think about it. It is SO cool. I love getting better cada dia! I am so blessed to be here!

Estoy disfrutando la experiencia que yo estoy experimentando. es increible para mi para pensar que tres meses pasadas, yo no hable nada en espanol, sino horita, yo puedo hablar muchas palabras sin pensando. yo no soy perfecto en la idioma, sino estoy tratando y aprendiendo y esa es la bendicion.

I love you all, thank you!

Elder Groseclose