Progress? What's Progress?!

4/10/17 Sooooooo, yeah this week was pretty slow, i wouldn't say that it was really hard but I definitely have had better weeks. The area is still amazingly gorgeous and at some points I legit feel like I'm hiking some world-class sightseeing trails. The people, however, are a little less friendly haha. The majority of the people here are very religious, or they are well off enough that they don't think religion could make them any happier, That all means bringing up your own religion with anyone leads to an argument over some kind of apostasy or ends the conversation completely. Up until now me and my comp have been working pretty much on our own to find people, and this weekend I realized that we weren't getting anywhere haha. So what we plan on doing is working wit the members in order to find the people who are ready to receive us rather than sifting through a sea of seventh day adventists haha. That our plan for now and i hope this week goes much better.

As far as people we are teaching right now goes we have found some through old references and contacting, but the majority dont progress very well and we are having particular trouble finding people when they have time to talk. I know with time and perserverance we will have success but the road is long and doesnt seem to have an end haha.

Our PDays have been the light of my life so far, playing football and sightseeing is honestly the best and for those of you who wanted pictures last week, FEAR NOT. I brought a lot with me today haha. Also doing service is fun when I remember to put on bug repelent... anyways all in all things are going great and i look foward to playing more football today. 

Entonces... scripture of the week is 1 Corinthians 13. read that bad boy and apply it for some good charity action. When we have charity, we can perform miracles. love you all a ton and hope you have a great week!!! -Elder Grover

P.S. The latinos continue to boggle my mind and my comp especially is interesting haha when we work believe it or not I do the vast majority of the talking, and the funny thing is that I can say I'm from Argentina and people will believe me lol. It's awesome but sometimes he does things that just confuse me. for example in the mornings we are almost always late to breakfast because he takes 35 minutes to shower every morning... and before that when we wake up he will get out of bed and lay on the ground and stare at the ceiling for 20-30 minutes... no idea

Holy Mother of Pearl It's Not Hot (Who's Pearl?)

3/20/17 So unfortunately not much new happened this week, yes we had another baptism and that was super awesome to see another person take the first step on the road to happiness. The investigators name is Kaily, and she was actually an older investigator from other elders, which didn't do a very good job at leaving her easy to find haha. But we got-er-done and shes super excited to continue progressing! As far as other news goes we have another family preparing for baptism and are looking for another... only problem is there are transfers right around the corner (tonight) and its almost certain that either me or my comp will leave... we shall see. 

I guess the lack of news means I get to share sumtin special... here we go! This past week I learned a lot about weaknesses. Of course we can read about them in the Book of Mormon and other places but really we don't understand what is being said until we live it ourselves. Before coming out here i definitely didn't think I was perfect... but I didn't think I had nearly as many weaknesses as I actually do haha. When my patience started being tested is when i realized i REALLY lack patience, and when it comes to being obedient, I lack that too! But like Ether explains to us we are GIVEN weaknesses to be MADE humble... doesn't sound very fair until we continue reading. If we SHOW Christ our weaknesses and further humble ourselves, he will MAKE our weaknesses strengths. Notice that humility comes up twice, and also alot of the work is done by him. Humility is the key to allow him to change us, if we really are susceptible to his will, we will become more like him. It wont happen overnight but oh will we change. I Invite anyone who hasn't fallen asleep yet to think about your own weaknesses, and think about how you can make them strengths IN HIM, not by your own strength. Might be worth a shot :) that's all for now, love ya, have a great week. 

1. wood carvings given to us by our convert carlos!!!

2.Elder Garcia, finished his mission and returned with honor to Mexico

 

3/27/17 TRANSFERS ARE BEAUTIFUL THIS TIME OF YEAR. So yes, you will no longer find tall awkward skinny Elder Grover in dusty, rainy, sunny, muddy pucallpa. I'M IN MOYOBAMBA BABY. Elder Llamoca stayed behind to train another greenie, and I'm here opening an area again hahaha. My new comps name is ELDER COYA, He is also from Arequipa (same as llamoca), loves animals (same as llamoca) and loves playing video games (also same as llamoca). on the flip side, HE IS SUPER CLEAN. I arrived to the house first and found an absolute dump haha so i did a little organizing, dusted a bit and put my clothes away. He gets to the house and has a mini heart attack because "everything is covered in dust". If he were in Pucallpa I think he might actually have a heart attack. Elder Coya came from another mission in Mexico, he had to have a change because it was literally too hot for him. Now he is here with me and he has a total of 4 months in the mission, he also has forgotten a lot of what he learned in the Mexico MTC and now he's with me... I have 2 months more than him... NADA MAS. At first I didn't know what to think... but I guess all I can do now is keep on trekking. 

Moyobamba is found in the mountains kinda in the north-central area of Peru. It is GORGEOUS, and sorry for the lack of pictures of anything actually amazing because that will come later. The 2 best parts of the city is 1, it is probably the closest I will ever come to finding anything that looks like the US, and 2.  IT'S NOT HOT. OH SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL IT IS NICE AND COOL. There are mountains, a river, apparently cool hiking and most of all: 7TH DAY ADVENTISTS. Everyone loves Moyo but no one wants to be here for long, because the adventists and Jehovas witnesses love to bash with us, and the people here in general are very stubborn. So far I haven't had trouble with any of it but I'm sure I will in the future. 

I have one cool experience to share, we received word from a member that a mechanic was interested in "learning more about the church". We thought, "AWESOME, we gotta find this guy!!" so we went and we did. the guy came out of his dumpy shack next to his garage to talk, and starts going off about some crap about having been with 9 women and how he has more life experience than anyone in the world haha. He then claimed that life experience is what is necessary to preach the gospel, that we are awful people because we try to preach without life experience, and that god loves him and he's going to be saved. This poor old guy doesn't even get the half of it hahaha. So during all of this I asked him if he keeps the commandments... "only on Sundays"... hmmm interesting let me share a scripture with ya- JOHN 14:15 baby. invited him to repent, wished him a good day, and we left... kinda feel bad for that one but when the people refuse to understand you gotta be straight up with them. 

Anyways that's all for this week. Scriptures id like to share? 2 Nephi 32. loved reading that short but sweet scripture recently. hope you have a great week, and I'll see y'all next time. -Elder Grover (below is a pic of the new area)

4/3/17 So this week has been interesting  Unfortunately we didn't get much done, and no I'm not making general conference an excuse but we pretty much have had a 3 day p-day... so there was that and also we had the zone conference with the mission president on Wednesday. So yeah lots of time sitting and listening to people, but for the most part it was uplifting and really helped because at the time I needed it... especially general conference. For those of you who don't know what opening an area is its basically when an area goes dry, so the president takes out both missionaries who were working there and puts in 2 new ones to "start over". So that's where my comp and I come in... and let me tell ya, knocking doors for a couple hours a day is not fun at all...and to top it off the other elders left us next to nothing in transportation funds, so we couldn't take a mototaxi anywhere... that translates to walking haha. other than the walking I can now sympathize with elders from the states...

Anyways we really are doing well, Elder Coya doesn't have much experience but that's alright, we're learning together. The area is progressing and this week we plan on giving it all we got to find people and get them on the track to happiness. 

The conference I loved, and for the first time in my life I watched every session. Elder Rasband, Holland, and President Monson all gave amazing talks and I felt a deep understanding of the doctrine through there words. Oh how I love personal revelation. If any of you haven't watched or heard their talks I EXHORT you to do so :) 

All is well here in the cool hills of moyo and next week you will probably hear something more exciting. Love you all and I hope you have a great week. -Elder Grover

p.s. Sorry for the lack of pictures, forgot to bring my camera to internet :P